Naruto: Mixed Bloodlines
by AlucardBahamut
Summary: A long time ago, the Clans wandered all over the countries. Many times they had children they didn't know about; many times those children married into other families. So naturally, many Clans had descendants in other Clans that they never knew about. Naruto just happened to have Kaguya blood in him and what's more: he just happened to be born with the Shikotsumyaku. Pairing in AN
1. Ch 00-01: Side Effects & The First Step

_**Naruto: Mixed Bloodlines**_

_**Prelude**:_

_Side Effects_

Long ago, before the Ninja Village system was first considered, the many ninja clans around the continent used to travel through the lands receiving payment for 'specialized' jobs like assassination, espionage, sabotage and any other job the honourable samurai wouldn't take. The ninja were particularly requested during times of war.

One of the side effects of always wandering – specially in times of war – that people and, many times, even the ninjas themselves didn't think much about was that with that many journeys, inevitably there would be many bastard children from these very clans, though when the clan found one of these unaccounted members, they used to reclaim them, even if those children were already 'claimed' by other parties. The members that were never found out, on the other hand, sometimes ended joining other ninja clans, marrying into samurai families or even just living their lives as simple civilians, without ever finding out where their blood came from.

The most powerful clans also naturally ended up accumulating quite a lot of money, so a few clans ended up buying lands to settle themselves on for many reasons, not the least being that this way potential customers would find them easier; and because these rich clans were so strong, they didn't fear being attacked by enemies, specially if they had powerful Kekkei Genkai, like the Hyuuga Clan.

There were, though, a few clans that never settled even if they had the riches and the power to buy and protect their lands, like the Uchiha Clan; one of the greatest Uchiha leaders ever born, Uchiha Madara, wouldn't settle down while their fiercest enemy, the Senju Clan, and specially his greatest rival, Senju Hashirama, wasn't defeated.

The other Uchiha, however, had grown tired of wandering and fighting the Senju all the time and they made their discontent known by Madara, so when the Senju offered a peace treaty, Madara didn't have any other choice besides accepting the deal.

The first Ninja Village ever had just been conceived.

But a village still needs a land to exist and their continuous war with each other had depleted much of both clans' savings, specially the Senju, so the Uchiha offered negotiating with their estranged relatives, the Hyuuga, in order to buy the land where upon a new shinobi age would be built.

The negotiations were hard and stressful, but in the end the Hyuuga agreed upon selling the biggest part of their lands so the future Village of Konoha could be built, their reasoning being that their property had grown up so much by that point that even with their Byakugan it was getting too hard to keep watch over their lands but because those lands were used to feed the clan they couldn't just give it away.

When the negotiations ended, both the Senju and the Uchiha had already used much of the money they still had after their many wars, even if they still could live comfortably for the next decades if they economized in the construction of the houses, so the Senju offered themselves to get the necessary raw material to build the village.

Using his Mokuton, Hashirama created the forest that would soon turn into Konoha and after years of labour from the three clans the Village system became a reality.

The Senju and the Uchiha, who made the treaty that originated Konoha, became know as the Founding Clans, and the Hyuuga, which didn't participate as much as the other two clans during the building of the village but offered the land, started seeing itself as the Predecessor Clan, even though the History books wouldn't refer to them as such, sometimes even not mentioning the fundamental but not showy role the Hyuuga Clan played, which sometimes is a disagreement they have towards Konoha.

Soon, many other clans founded their own villages and a new age for the ninjas was born.

But some clans never abandoned their ancient, violent and wandering ways, like the Kaguya Clan.

The Kaguya Clan was a nomadic barbarian clan that lived for the thrill of battle and nothing else, so they didn't fear any other clan because they couldn't believe there was a clan stronger than them in the ninja world; but even they had a fear: their own 'cursed' bloodline.

The reason for that was that their Kekkei Genkai was so powerful even the fiercest warriors in the clan couldn't help but tremble before it. Fortunately for them only a few in each generation, if much, awakened the Shikotsumyaku, but those who did were often the strongest fighters of the clan and that was all the Kaguya knew or bothered to know about these 'bone users'.

What they didn't bother to find out was that the Shikotsumyaku was a _very_ recessive gene, so only if both parents had this gene- which considering how many children with people of different clans they had was quite unlikely - a child had the _chanc_e of being born with it.

And because they travelled so much, many people from other clans and even civilians families never knew they had Kaguya blood running in their veins and some of those anonymous Kaguya heirs even married among themselves. In the end the Shikotsumyaku gene was spread across the land.

Two of those unexpected heirs that never knew they had Kaguya blood were Namikaze Minato - the Yellow Flash of Konoha and Konoha's Yondaime Hokage - and Uzumaki Kushina - the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero and Kyuubi Jinchuuriki - who had a son they named Naruto.

Unfortunately in the night Naruto was born, Konoha was attacked by a masked man whom Minato concluded was the long thought dead Uchiha Madara, who forced both father and mother to sacrifice themselves and, in a way, even their just-born son to save the home they loved.

What they could've never have guessed was that Naruto had been one of the few Kaguya descendants to be blessed (or cursed), with the Shikotsumyaku and Naruto himself would only find out his heritage long after the brave, if unwise, clan was utterly crushed by the Village of Kiri...

* * *

_**Chapter I****:**_

_The First Step on the Journey of the Unexpected Heir_

Uzumaki Naruto,(age 12, student of the Ninja Academy of Konoha, a small boy with blue eyes, white hair and three whisker-like birthmarks on each cheek), was very confused at the moment. Earlier in this day he had failed for the third time the Academy Graduation Exam. Later while he was still beating himself up for having failed yet again, his instructor Mizuki (age 27, silver hair and green eyes) said he still could graduate if he passed a special test that involved infiltrating the Hokage's Residence and learning one jutsu from the Forbidden Scroll of Seals.

And he, Uzumaki Naruto, Genin candidate, had done that, but something weird was happening because Umino Iruka-sensei (age 22, tanned skin, black eyes and hair and a noticealbe scar running across his nose's bridge) was until moments ago pinned against a wall by a lot of kunais and Mizuki was on a branch having threw the very same kunais that were pinning Iruka-sensei to the wood cabin in the clearing were Naruto had been training non-stop since he opened the scroll, and now Mizuki was saying something about a 'truth' that had been hidden from him and Iruka-sensei seemed to know what that was and visibly wasn't happy Mizuki intended to say whatever it was he wanted.

"You know about the Demon Fox attack 12 years ago, right?", began Mizuki.

Yes, of course he knew, everyone in the village that was learning about Konoha's History knew about this attack, when the Kyuubi no Youko suddenly attacked the Village for reasons yet unknown and was killed by the Yondaime Hokage who sacrificed his own life to do the impossible, but what this had anything to do about the 'truth' Mizuki was trying to tell? It seemed he would understand soon as Mizuki continued to speak, "Since that day a special law was made that applied only to this village".

"A law"?

"But... This law was never supposed to be told to you".

"Why? What is this law?! Tell me"!

Mizuki just chuckled evilly.

"What... is that law...?", repeated Naruto even though he had a very bad feeling about this.

"The law is that we are never supposed to talk about the fact that you are... the Kyuubi no Youko"!

**!**

"What...? What does that mean"?

"STOP IT!", cried Iruka.

"It means that you are the Kyuubi no Youko, the demonic fox that attacked this village 12 years ago and which killed Iruka's parents! You were sealed by the Hokage you so much admires and"...

"STOP!", begged Iruka, but Mizuki didn't even pay attention.

"...You have been lied to by everyone!", Mizuki kept going, visibly enjoying the pain he was causing to the little fox he saw while he prepared to throw the giant shuriken that would hopefully kill the Fox once and for all, "Didn't you find it odd how everyone hated you? Well, that's the reason and even Iruka is the same, he also HATES you"!

That was too much for Naruto, could this be true? Could he really be the Kyuubi? He certainly didn't feel like he was, but again if he was this explained many things, like his weird whisker marks he had for as long as he could remember and justified the way he had been treated for as long as; even so he didn't believe it fully, he didn't _want_ to believe it.

"Nobody will ever love you!", Mizuki finished and threw the shuriken towards Naruto, who was immobilized by the implications this revelation entailed.

Noticing this, Iruka tried jumping in front of Naruto to protect him.

Unfortunately in this world, unlike countless other alternate worlds, Iruka was too far from Naruto to manage to defend the boy he saw as a younger brother; fortunately when Iruka yelled Naruto's name, Naruto was able to get out of his denial-induced trance; unfortunately when Naruto regained his senses he realized he didn't have time to evade the attack so he put his arms in front of him and closed his eyes, wishing with all his strength for _something_ to happen that would save him; fortunately Naruto had a 'genetic quirk' he didn't have any idea about and this mutation chose that moment to reveal itself.

Before the shuriken hit Naruto's arms, bones tougher than steel popped out of his forearms and by luck deflect the thrown weapon that went spiralling towards the cabin behind them and got stuck in the floor right next to Iruka.

The moment the bones popped out Iruka was shocked, could Naruto have a Kekkei Genkai? But that was one he had never seen or heard about before!

When Naruto felt the shuriken hitting something solid in front of him, he opened his eyes to see what had saved him, that was when he saw his bones:

"What the hell?!" and he jumped back and finally noticed that the bones were his; had he been in other situation he would have found it 'cool', but because of what Mizuki said, all he saw was a creepy power that only proved that he was, indeed a demon.

"Damn you, demon!", screamed Mizuki, pulling many kunais from his pockets.

But this time Iruka was faster and threw one of the kunai that were piercing his body at Mizuki, who was hit in one hand making him drop the blades in that hand and even unbalancing the traitor a bit, so pulling out another kunai from his body Iruka threw it at the other hand, making his target drop the other knives as well. Taking advantage of the distraction, Iruka pulled the shuriken that was stuck in the floor and threw it at Mizuki, who wasn't able to recover from the attacks in time to defend the spinning star which stuck him true in the chest, making him lose his foot on the branch of the tree and fall from a height of ten metres, knocking him out.

After breathing in and out to calm himself a bit, Iruka walked to Naruto to comfort him, "Are you okay, Naruto?" and raised his hand to touch the boy, however the boy was too scared to allow even such an affectionate gesture and took a few steps back and stared at his teacher as if he was a cornered animal:

"Is it true? Am I really the Kyuubi"?

Iruka stopped and stared at Naruto as if he had just made a really stupid question:

"Of course not. You are Naruto, one of my most important people", replied Iruka.

"But then why do everyone hate me if I'm not the fox?", cried Naruto, "Why do people keep ignoring and hating and glaring at me when they think I'm not watching? Why am I so mistreated? I have to be the fox, otherwise they wouldn't have any reason to treat me like that"!

"You're not the fox, if you were I would know", assured Iruka, losing his patience (after all he was losing quite a bit of blood that could prove to be very lethal if not treated soon, but his student was more important now).

"How could you possibly be sure?", cried Naruto, "How can _I_ be sure"?!

Iruka got silent for some time before sighing and sitting on the floor:

"I'm sure of that because I understand you, Naruto", confessed Iruka, "Sit a bit as well, I would rather having not to look up the whole time".

Only after Naruto sat did Iruka continue:

"When my parents died", here Naruto made a face but Iruka ignored it, "there was no one else to praise or acknowledge me. As I've never been very good in stuff like studying and paying attention in class", now Naruto just stared at Iruka as if asking if he was crazy, "Hey, don't stare at me like that! I was a student once too! As I was saying, because I wasn't a good student I started acting like an idiot, always pulling a prank, always calling attention to myself", here Iruka stared at Naruto intently, "and specially I was always smiling, even when I wanted to cry, I was always suffering a lot, but I didn't want other people to worry about and pity me so I always smiled. You know as well as I do how much loneness hurts but even so you don't want people worrying about nor having pity on you, just like me. And it's because I know this pain as well as you that I know exactly what you're trying to do: you just want to be acknowledged and I'm sure that if you really were the Demon Fox you wouldn't care about the others' opinions and because I know this I can fully trust you and believe in the fact that you're only Uzumaki Naruto of Konoha, not the Demon Fox".

By that point Naruto was already crying of joy and relief. Someone else acknowledged and accepted him! Only Old Man Hokage, Old Man Ichiraku and Ayame-nee-chan did so before! He was so happy, he hadn't noticed that the bones had already retracted to their place not leaving even a scar in his forearms.

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei!", cried Naruto, this time in joy, jumping on his older brother figure and hugging him with all his strength.

"Now Naruto, stop that, you're going to break my ribs like this!", laughed Iruka even though he was grimacing in pain.

"How (gasp!) touching!", a voice from under the tree, "So it has (gasp) (gasp!) fooled even you, Iruka!", a body moved and tried raising itself from it's spot under the branch of a tree, "I always (cough!) knew you were a fool, Iruka (cough) (cough) (gasp!), but I never thought you would be so naïve!", the other two turned to owner of the voice, "(cough!) It's obvious this demon used it's evil powers to (gasp!) control your mind"!

"Mizuki!", spit Naruto as if it was a terrible curse. Now that he knew for sure that Iruka accepted him, he wasn't going to quietly take sh*t like that from anyone! Iruka-sensei believed in him and that was enough to make he decide to stand up and fight to protect that trust!

"Shut up you damn demon! (gasp, cough, cough!) You're not going to trick me!", challenged Mizuki, rising slowly from the floor while pulling the shuriken from his chest, "I'm going to (cough!) kill you and be hailed as a hero! (gasp) (gasp) I'll even kill that idiot there who was corrupted by you! (cough!) Then I'll finally receive the respect I deserve"!

"Oh no, you won't, you bastard!", answered Naruto, "I'll will deliver the pain you put Iruka-sensei through a thousand times over! _KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU_"!

And smoke covered the clearing and from it a thousand Narutos burst out ready to fight.

To say Iruka was impressed would be an understatement as it would be to say that Mizuki was incredulous and quite a bit scared.

"Get ready to receive your punishment!", echoed all thousand Narutos at the same time. With a battle cry the thousand Narutos jumped on Mizuki and beat him senseless. Only the fact that none of the attacks were well-aimed saved Mizuki's life, even if only by an inch.

"Oops, I think I exaggerated a bit on his punishment", said Naruto sheepishly after he dispelled all the clones.

Fortunately for the traitor (or maybe not), the ANBU got to the scene just in time for one of the medic-nins to stabilize his condition enough so he wouldn't die and took him to the hospital where Mizuki would stay under emergency care before been interrogated by the ANBU.

Another ANBU medic-nin then proceeded to apply first aids on Iruka while the ANBU Commander surveyed the mess that was the clearing-turned-battlefield.

"Wow, it seems you guys had quite the party here", said the Commander, who was wearing a tiger mask, by way of opening the communication line with the two still conscious participants of whatever the hell happened there, "Care to explain what happened here"?

"Sir", called Iruka-sensei before Naruto could open his mouth, "according to what I heard and saw after I found the suspect, it seems my... colleague Mizuki tricked the student Uzumaki Naruto into stealing the Forbidden Scroll with promises of graduating him if he learned at least one technique from it, but then he tried to kill both me and the boy and steal the Scroll for himself, while using Naruto as a scapegoat", summarised Iruka-sensei.

"It seems things got quite 'interesting' here", concluded Tiger, "You do know, however, that until Hokage-sama questions you himself, I'll have to arrest you even if you're telling the truth, right"?

"What?!", this time Iruka wasn't fast enough to speak before Naruto, "That's not fair! That guy is a traitor and we are arrested while he goes to the hospital? How does that work"!

"Naruto", sighed Iruka before starting his lecture, "They don't know if we're telling the truth or not, so they can't take any chances, as for Mizuki he will be locked in a hospital room until he recovers enough to be interrogated and even while he's under treatment, he'll be watched closely by the ANBU, so he's pretty as arrested as us. Also don't fight or talk back at the ANBU Commander or your situation can get much worse, so just let them follow the protocol and be patient until Hokage-sama himself can talk to us".

"Fine", grumbled back Naruto, "But that's still not fair".

"Well, now that we're understood, can we 'follow protocol' already?", replied Tiger, "The sooner we get this dealt with the sooner we can go back to our normal lives, or in your case maybe not".

Then the ANBU arrested both Iruka and Naruto and took them to the Hokage Office to have a 'talk' with the Sandaime so he could decide what to do with them.

The travel was short and uneventful so before he noticed, Naruto was already in front of the Old Man Hokage:

"Thank you, Tiger-kun, you may leave soon, you just need to free them before you do", dismissed Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage (age 68, gray hair, dark eyes and a thik goatee), and Tiger disappeared after unlocking the two suspects, "So, Iruka-kun, Naruto-kun, could you both explain in detail to me what happened, each with your own words"?

After a couple hours of retelling in details everything that led to the incident and even the things that were said and felt by the two; when Iruka mentioned his suspicions about Naruto having a Kekkei Genkai, Hokage-sama didn't seem very surprised (but that could be just because the old ninja had an impressive poker face) and Naruto just seemed confused:

"Hey, what is this Ke-don't-know-what"?

Iruka-kun sighed and answered:

"Didn't you ever pay attention at class, Naruto"?

"Hey"!

"A Kekkei Genkai, Naruto-kun, is a kind of power or technique that people in a determined clan are born with and not taught, but not a technique that determined clan invented and only passes to people of that clan".

"Does that mean I have a family?", asked Naruto, joy filling him, but soon he noticed the Old Man's sorrowful expression and deflated.

"I'm afraid not any more, Naruto-kun, because the only Clan ever rumoured to have anything similar to this power Iruka-kun described and that I've seen through my crystal ball that I know of was a nomadic clan called Kaguya that was virtually extinguished a few years ago when they attacked the Village of Kiri", Sarutobi puffed his lit pipe in sadness, "It is said that no member of this clan survived".

Sarutobi just sat there, puffing in sorrow, until Naruto sobbed:

"I... see", it was just his luck, he couldn't find out he had a family before it was taken from him soon after, "So, did my parents... abandon me and die fighting against another village"?

"NO!", guaranteed Hokage-sama fiercely, "Your parents were most assuredly not Kaguya! They were official Konoha shinobi! I believe that they just happened to be descendants of the Kaguya and didn't know about that, which is not uncommon in our world, specially in this case. So, never again say that your parents abandoned you, they would've never done that even if they could"!

Nowadays it was really rare to see Sarutobi Hiruzen angry, but when it happened you understood why he was once called "God of Shinobi", for when he did, you _felt_ all the power that was confined in his gentle-looking frame.

"Yes, Sir!", agreed Naruto quickly. He had never seeing Old Man Hokage so angry and frankly, he was scared. Thankfully Sandaime-sama quickly recovered his composure and relaxed:

"Oh, I'm sorry, Naruto-kun", said Sarutobi, who smiled embarrassed, "It's just I personally knew your parents and they were very good friends of mine, so I couldn't help it. They were good people and strong ninjas, so I get more emotional when they are involved".

"Hey, waaait...", replied Naruto, suspicion thick on his voice, "You knew my parents"?

"Of course I did! I was already Hokage when they started getting famous", replied Sarutobi.

"Then, could you please tell me more about them?!", begged Naruto jumping on top of the Hokage's desk ("Hey Naruto, get off there!", scolded Iruka-sensei, who kept quiet during this talk because it was something that didn't involve him).

But once again pain flashed across the Old Man Hokage's face:

"I'm sorry, Naruto", told him and Naruto's face fell again, making Hiruzen hate himself more for it, but still firm in his decision, "But because they were famous they had many enemies, powerful enemies, so if they discovered who your parents were, odds are high that they would try to kill you, so I'll only tell you something about them when you get strong enough to defend yourself from the most varied forms of attack".

"That means if I get strong enough, you'll tell me about them?", Naruto asked for confirmation, his mood improving already, which only improved when Old Man Hokage smiled like he used to in his presence.

"Yes".

"Promise?", asked Naruto, unable to contain the hope in his voice.

"Promise", nodded Hiruzen, his smile even more relaxed.

"Yay!", Naruto jumped from the desk and punched the air.

"Now Naruto, could you please get down of my desk?", smiled the elder.

"Oh yeah, sorry", obeyed Naruto sheepishly, then he smiled and declared, "Oh man! I can't wait for the next semester! The sooner I get stronger, the sooner I'll learn who my parents are and also the closer I'll be of taking your hat, Old Man"!

"Oh yeah, about the graduation", remembered the Hokage, picking something from a drawer and handing it to the boy, "Congratulations on graduating, Naruto-kun!", it was an old Konoha hitaiate.

"Really?", asked Naruto hopefully.

"Yes, after what happened tonight I'm guessing even Iruka-kun here agrees that you're most definitely ready for graduating, right, Iruka-kun?", the Hokage asked rhetorically.

"Yes, Sir, after seeing Naruto use the Kage Bunshin, a more powerful version than the Bunshin we teach at the Academy I'm sure Naruto deserves his graduation", agreed the Academy Teacher, smiling, "After all, what failed Naruto was his inability of using the Bunshin no Jutsu, but now that he knows the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, he is ready to be a Genin. Indeed I was intending in giving him my hitaite and pass him myself, but the ANBU got to us before that and brought us here".

"Really?", Naruto still couldn't believe how good this night turning out after how bad the day begun.

"Yes, Naruto, really", congratulated Iruka-sensei.

"By the way, Naruto-kun, this hitaiate I gave you was one of your father's spares", smiled Hiruzen, "I'm sure he would be proud his son was using it".

Naruto was by now so happy he wanted to hug both the Old Man Hokage and Iruka-sensei but didn't know who to hug first, so he summoned one Kage Bunshin (after tying his father's old hitaiate of course) and taking advantage of their slight confusion about his actions both Narutos jumped and each one hugged one of their two precious people in the room, laughing genuinely happy...

* * *

**Author's notes**:

11/18/2012: Well, here it is, my first normal fic in this site. I've published a cross-over before, but I intend to rewrite it in the future.

This story is in part inspired by Lucillia's Uzumaki and Uchiha story. Originally I intended to write an Uchiha!Naruto fic, but I also wanted to write a Kaguya!Naruto story, so I decided to first write the Kaguya one and when I'm better at this I'll write the Uchiha one.

Anyway that's not why I'm writing this notes, I'm writing these notes to say a few things about what I'm planning - I would've wrote it in the summary but I concluded the remaining characters wouldn't be enough -, namely: pairings are ultimately undecided but there will probably have NaruHina in the future and possibly Sakura may join the fun too, who knows? It may even turn into a Harem later too, but even if pairings are undecided, I do already have an idea for Sasuke...

Also, I'll keep this story similar to canon in the beginning but as you can see there is already a few differences from canon, like Iruka not managing to push Naruto out of the way of Mizuki's shuriken and Naruto receiving his father's old hitaiate instead of Iruka's. The only reason the latter happened was because Iruka and Naruto took longer in that clearing than in canon, which gave time for the ANBU to reach them and the rest just flowed from there, including Naruto learning a little bit about his parents much sooner than I expected; but the end I'm satisfied with the way it turned out, as it gave Naruto another motivation to get stronger (not that he needed) and I didn't actually say much about them.

Now, the reason I made Naruto have white hair in this story is mainly because I like white-haired young looking protagonists, I find it cool (I blame Castlevania: Symphony of the Night); this been said I do have an in-universe justification for it though, it might not be the best one but I do have, however I'll only tell it when it becomes vaguely relevant.

Edit 11/27/2012: Just corrected a few spelling mistakes I saw and tried making the reading easier to follow.

I also decided to say why, in this fic, I made Konoha having being built in land that formerly belonged to the Hyuuga: it is mainly because I have the feeling it was said in the Anime at some point that the Hyuuga Clan was even more traditional then the Uchiha Clan and I understood that as the Hyuuga having being longer in Konoha then the Uchiha, but after the author said the Uchiha was one of the two clans that founded Konoha I thought it didn't fit with previous information so after thinking about it long enough I figured out a way that both informations could not contradict each other, and this way is what happened in the prologue: basically, the Hyuuga had being living in that place longer then Konoha, but the reason the Hyuuga would allow a village to be built in their lands was something I considered later.

And that's why Konoha was built in the land that formerly belonged to the Hyuuga.


	2. Ch 02: Day -1 of the Team

**_Chapter II_**_:_

_Day -1 of the Team_

Naruto woke up early the next day. When he got home after his full night he decided it would be in his best interest to go sleep soon. He would rather spend at least a few hours trying to discover how to use his Kekkei Genkai, but when he got home it had already been almost morning and he was tired.

Well, he would still have one day to discover how to use his powers before been assigned to a team.

After Naruto woke up the rest of the day wasn't particularly noteworthy, he just made his Ninja Registration, was stalked not only by a girl that studied with him but by a kid named Konohamaru who was Old Man Hokage's grandson, taught him his Sexy no Jutsu, improved on it by combining it with the Kage Bunshin and ended up becoming the 'boss' of Konohamaru who also wanted to be Hokage.

The rest of the day Naruto spent trying to discover how to use the Shikotsumyaku to it fullest and discovered many interesting things; mainly that he could pretty much change his entire bone structure no matter how uncommon it was, that whenever a bone popped out of his skin, his skin was ripped (which hurt) but when the bone was removed or 'sheathed', his skin healed immediately after without leaving even a scar.

He also concluded, for his frustration, that he would need new clothes, otherwise his awesome jumpsuit would always be in need of repair after he used his power because, unlike his skin, his clothes didn't repair itself after being ripped. Naturally he was sad, but what could he do? It was a relatively small price for having such an awesome power.

After testing his powers, Naruto supposed it would be useful if he researched everything he could about bones but as it was already late, he decided to go to sleep and do the research the next day, after he officially became a ninja. He smiled, he was going to be a ninja, he could barely wait! And he was going to start using his father's hitaiate!

The next day, in the Academy, Naruto didn't know whether to curse or thank his luck stars: on one hand he was in the same team as the guy he hated the most in the Academy, Uchiha Sasuke (age 12, pale skin, black hair and eyes), the guy who was the most popular one in the class and the best all-around ninja among the students, on the other he was in the same team as the girl he had a crush on, Haruno Sakura (age 12, fair skin, pink hair and green eyes) and the smartest girl in class (not to mention a girl that could pack quite the punch) who, unfortunately, was also one of the fiercest fangirls of Sasuke. And just to make matters worse, the jounin-sensei that was supposed to train them was LATE!

Naturally, Naruto had soon grown bored, so he decided to find something to amuse him with, so he made an yo-yo out off two bones he created and a bit of wire: first he made the wheel that would be used as the weight, then he created a smaller bone that would work as the ring in which he would tied in one of the extremities of a wire he pulled from his tool's pouch, then he would tie the other extremity to the bigger bone and voilà, an improvised yo-yo!

His team mates just stared at him as he created his own yo-yo, specially because they saw the bones growing from his skin that was as unblemished after removing them as it was before.

"Naruto, what the hell was that?", asked Sakura after trying, and failing, to make sense of what she saw.

"What was what?", answered Naruto, still focused in his bone toy.

"The thing that grew out of your skin, obviously!", replied Sakura.

"Oh, those were bones I created", told Naruto as if it wasn't nothing much.

"Bones... you created?", repeated the girl, getting slightly green as her mind processed what he said.

"Yeah, it seems I had a Kekkei Genkai not even I knew about, which allows me to pretty much control all the bones in my body as I like. I just used that to create something to do".

"Since when do you have a Kekkei Genkai, dead-last?", retorted Sasuke, surprise, incredulity and possibly even a hint of jealousy in his voice.

"Well, probably since I was born, but I only awakened it the night before yesterday", replied Naruto, sounding distracted.

Sasuke would say something, but before he voiced his reply the room's door opened and a tall man entered: Hatake Kakashi (age 26, silver hair, a black eye, his hitaiate covering his left eye as some kind of eye-patch and a mask covering the bottom half of his face):

"Sorry, a black cat was going to cross my path so I had to take another path", greeted the man with his visible eye closed giving the impression he was smiling.

The three looked at him and thought at the same time 'Who's he trying to fool with such an obvious lie?', their expressions clearly showing they didn't believe him.

After looking at his three students, Kakashi said plainly:

"My first impression of this team is: this is not going to work".

"WHAT?!", complained Naruto in a very loud voice. Both Sasuke and Sakura had also wanted to do the same, but they decided that since Naruto had done it first they didn't need to do it too.

"Meet me on the roof in five minutes", said Kakashi, completely ignoring Naruto's outburst.

"So, why don't we start by presenting ourselves?", began the jounin when the four of them were in the agreed spot, Sasuke at the right of the older ninja, Sakura in front of him and Naruto on the left, "Like your names, likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams and so on".

"Why don't you go first, sensei?", suggested Sakura.

"Sure, why not? My name is Hatake Kakashi, I like many things, you don't need to know my dislikes, I have many hobbies and... dreams, hmm? Okay, you next, brooding boy", told Kakashi. Basically they just found out his name as you can notice.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I don't like anything in special, I hate many things, I don't really have a hobby and I don't really have a dream, but rather an ambition: kill a certain man and restore my clan", answered Sasuke. Obviously he had quite a lot of issues.

"Now you, pink-girl".

"My name is Haruno Sakura! I like...", she looked at Sasuke and blushed, "My dream is...", she looked at Sasuke again and squealed like the fangirl she was, "My hobby... reading, maybe"?

"And, what do you dislike?", asked Kakashi, a sweat drop running behind his head. Yes, Sakura also had many issues, but of other nature.

"Naruto!", replied her. Ouch, that hurt!

"So next is you, orange-boy", sighed Kakashi, already calculating the medicines he would need to use to begin treating the awful headache that this 'team' seemed to be turning out to be.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like ramen, specially when Iruka-sensei takes me to Ichiraku Ramen! I hate the three minutes needed to finish cooking instant noodles"!

Oh great, it seemed the third member of the group only thought about ramen...

"My dreams", continued Naruto, oblivious to the thoughts that crossed the jounin's head, "are: first, getting strong enough so I can learn who my parents are! Second, to become Hokage and make everyone in this village to acknowledge me! And if possible, to learn more about my clan"!

… Was it weird to think that the village pariah was the kid with the more usual dreams for kids his age in his team? Of course, those dreams of him were already somewhat odd for his age (or at least the way he worded them was odd), but those were dreams that at least were more in line with those of boys his age. And what did he mean by learning about his clan? Oh, yeah! The Sandaime said something about Naruto unexpectedly having Kaguya blood in him.

"You idiot, there's no 'Uzumaki Clan'", mocked Sasuke. Okay, that was even weirder. A Konoha citizen not knowing about the Uzumaki?

"What do you mean?", interrupted Kakashi, "Haven't the teachers at the Academy told you about our Eternal Alliance"?

"Eternal Alliance? I never heard of that", answered Sasuke. Even Sakura seemed confused, though about what wasn't clear.

"I'm talking about our Eternal Alliance with the Village of Uzushio!", frowned the sensei.

"Our teachers never told us anything about something like that", informed Sakura honestly.

"What?!", replied Kakashi, "But we see their symbol everywhere here in Konoha! It's in all the senior ninjas' jackets we use"!

"Wait, you mean this red spiral I have in my jacket?", asked Naruto pointing at his back where the said red spiral was prominently displayed, "I thought it was just a common symbol in ninja's clothes"!

"Yes, that spiral. And yes it is a common symbol in the clothes of Konoha ninjas, but that is because of our alliance with the late Village of Uzushio", confirmed Kakashi.

"But, sensei", asked Sakura shyly, "if that is the case why didn't any of our Academy teachers and neither our textbooks tell anything about this"?

"That's what I would like to know! This is supposed to be common knowledge!", replied Kakashi, starting to get pissed. It seems he would have to discuss with the Sandaime about this, "You three, meet me tomorrow at the Training Ground 3 at 8 o'clock, we will continue this discussion then", dismissed Kakashi.

Usually, Kakashi would have told his possible team about a survival test for the next day and warn them that if they didn't pass it they would be sent back to the Academy, but this 'interview' with his potential students raised some questions about some things, so before he decided what to think, he would speak to the Hokage, because he would certainly want to know that one of the most important clans for the Village had somehow been erased from the students' formations_..._

* * *

**Author's notes**:

11/24/2012: I'm writing these notes to talk about my decision to change Naruto's outfit a little bit and to give an apology.

First of all: the only reason I'll be changing Naruto's outfit is because I realized that if he didn't his jumpsuit would always be destroyed when using the Shikotsumyaku and only that. It has nothing to do about orange not being a 'stealthy' colour or his outfit being ridiculous or not, indeed if it wasn't for this little detail Naruto would still use his jumpsuit; that being said, I still don't know what kind of outfit to give him, so if you could help me I would be very thankful.

And second: I'm sorry my style of narration in this chapter was a little bit different then the previous chapters, but I noticed I still don't know very well what kind of narrator I would like for this story so it's possible I'll change my storytelling way for the first few chapters, but to decide sooner your opinions about that would be very much appreciated.


	3. Ch 03: Uzumaki and Kaguya

_**Chapter III**:_

_Uzumaki and Kaguya  
_

When Kakashi got to the Hokage Tower, the Sandaime's secretary said he was in a reunion with his advisers Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu and asked for him to wait.

Kakashi was tempted to break the door and barge in the office nonetheless, but decided he should calm himself down at least a little before questioning the Hokage, what if he had a good reason for that? So he just asked the secretary to warn Hokage-same that he needed to speak urgently with him about something involving Uzumaki Naruto.

Immediately after she complied, Kakashi was called to the office.

_A little earlier_...

Sarutobi Hiruzen was preparing himself for a reunion he most assuredly wasn't in the mood of having even if he knew it was unavoidable; to be honest, this reunion was supposed to have happened yesterday, but he managed to postpone it until today and that was the best he could do.

The subject of the discussion in itself wasn't usually something unpleasant, but Hiruzen was sure this time he would end up with a lot of headache after it was all done. The subject was Naruto.

After he finished his paperwork for the day, which for the first time in his life he was grateful for (though he would never admit it out loud) because it allowed him to postpone the meeting for a few more hours, Sarutobi sighed, pulled his favourite pipe, put his favourite brand of smoke in it, sat in the most comfortable position he could find in the chair, ordered some green tea for the reunion and finally allowed his council to enter in the room so they could finally discuss the future of an Uzumaki Naruto who may no longer be considered Uzumaki.

"Don't waste our time, Hiruzen", was the first thing his old team mate Homura said when he entered the office, "You know as well as we do that we have more important matters to attend to than discussing a Genin's clan allegiance".

Sarutobi let a frustrated sigh escape his mouth after hearing that. His friend wasn't usually like that, but sometimes he ended up in a terrible mood, which was specially common when they were going to discuss something Hiruzen wanted to avoid, like this reunion.

"He's right, Sarutobi", said the old woman who was another old team mates of his, "Even if this meeting is about such a valuable asset to our village like the Jinchuuriki, we are still responsible for many other roles in the Village, like supervising our Economy and the Civilian's Quality of Life. Even though we all know this is something you would rather not deal with, it was still terribly rude of you to make us wait for so many hours in the waiting room".

After sighing once more, Sarutobi Hiruzen replied:

"I'm sorry for making you wait, but this is something that will only upset me - and by extension you - and which I simply don't believe will have an effect in anything".

"You can't know that, Hiruzen!", retorted Homura, "We're talking about a bastard offspring from the Kaguya in our midst"!

"I will _NOT_ have you talking about Naruto like that!", reprimanded the 'God of Shinobi' in such a frosty voice you could almost swear it was snowing there, "You two know very well who his parents are and the sacrifice they made for Konoha! I would kill anyone who disrespected their sacrifice, even my friends! In fact, right now I have half a mind of taking this pipe in my mouth and throwing it through your throat in such a way that it would pierce your brain. And you know I would hit the target".

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama, I phrased it wrong. I meant no disrespect towards their heroism, what I intended to say was that we have a child that has the blood of this extinguished clan which was never claimed by them", bowed Homura, not very troubled by the death threat from his old friend (even if he knew Hiruzen would be able to do that) because he agreed that the way the words came out was highly disrespectful towards the Yondaime Hokage and his wife's sacrifice, a fact that if it was truly what he meant, this punishment could even be considered light.

"You're excused, my friend, just be careful to not let your bad mood result in such misunderstandings again", nodded Hiruzen, knowing that what Homura said now was exactly what he meant and not the blasphemous remark he made before, "That been said, I still am not sure I know what the problem is, so, please, could you tell me what worries you that much about it"?

"While it is indeed true that the... Uzumaki child being a Kaguya isn't a problem in itself, what worries me is how Kiri will react when they discover that there's still at least one survivor of the Kaguya, because the battle and the losses in it are still fresh in their mind and they _did_ lose some ninjas during it".

"So, basically, you're afraid Kiri will resent us for 'givinig asylum' to a member of the Kaguya and that this would make our relations with the Country of Water even more unstable"?

"Basically yes, Hiruzen", told Homura, this time with his temper a little bit more controlled.

"I don't think you need to worry about that, Homura. The Kaguya were an independent clan that didn't follow the orders of anyone so we could just say it was a decision the clan took on their own accord and that we had nothing to do with that, which is true", replied the Hokage, much more patiently now, "Or we could just make it another S-rank secret. Naruto already has so many around him another wouldn't really change anything. Besides, we could use it as a fail-safe in case someone decided to investigate about him, this way potential spies would get away with something but the things we _actually _want to hide wouldn't be found out".

"This... could actually work", considered Koharu, "Of course it isn't perfect yet, but we could explore these options. Indeed, a 'bait' of sorts could be very useful, we just need to mould it better but"...

"Yes this sounds like a good idea, Hiruzen", agreed Homura, "If we"...

"_Hokage-sama, Hatake Kakashi claims he has something urgent to speak with you"_, told the Secretary through the intercom, _"It seems to involve Uzumaki Naruto"_.

"Oh, it seems everyone wants to speak about Naruto with me today", chuckled Sarutobi, "Send him up, we can talk with him now".

"So, Homura and Koharu, hold your suggestions for a bit, I'm sure Kakashi-kun will be able to give some valuable insight".

"Yes, Hokage-sama", answered both advisers at the same time.

After waiting for a few moments, the door was knocked and the Sandaime said "You may enter".

"Good evening Hokage-sama, Mitokado-sama, Utatane-sama", bowed Kakashi, who waited for the Hokage's permission to speak.

"What is the problem Kakashi-kun? You said it was urgent", allowed the Hokage.

"Sir, I was talking with my potential students when a most serious matter was brought to my attention", began the youngest ninja in the room, "Sir, it seems our genin aren't learning about the Uzumaki".

"Are you sure?", frowned Sarutobi and his advisers.

"Yes sir, when we were presenting ourselves, Uzumaki Naruto said one of his wishes was to learn more about his clan. It was then that Uchiha Sasuke said something I thought strange: he said there wasn't any Uzumaki Clan".

At that, the Hokage and his advisers frowned even more and Kakashi continued:

"And then, to my complete surprise, when I mentioned our Eternal Alliance, neither of the three seemed to know what I was talking about. But only when Haruno Sakura told me that neither the teachers nor the textbooks said anything about it I decided to come and warn you about this most serious lack of information".

The room was silent. Uzushio and specially the Uzumaki had being the greatest allies of Konoha through the whole history of the village, until the day their village was destroyed and their members scattered across the word. The failure in protecting Uzushio was still a sore point for the older ninjas in Konoha, but it was an important reminder of the things they could lose in this job and how fiercely they should protect those important to them, not to mention an example of what could happen in a battlefield because of a tactical error, for it was a tactical error that made Konoha get to Uzushio too late to save them.

If the Uzumaki and Uzushio were forgotten, the ninjas in Konoha wouldn't learn how they should always have at least two backup plans in a war in the case the main plan failed or took too long to be completed, or how alliances are important in the ninja world because after Uzushio's destruction Konoha almost lost the war and only survived because of luck.

"This is indeed a really urgent matter, don't you agree, my friends?", contemplated Hiruzen, turning to his advisers.

"Yes, Hokage-sama", said both in unison.

"It seems our discussion about Naruto's ties with the Kaguya will have to wait a little, don't you think so, Homura, Koharu"?

"Yes, Hokage-sama", said both in unison once again.

If they couldn't even solve this issue with Naruto's Uzumaki side, how could they solve the issue with his Kaguya side? One clan at a time. And even if they tried to deal with the Kaguya matter now they wouldn't be able to concentrate on it due to the revolt they were feeling about this omission of such an important part of the ninjas' formation.

Sarutobi called his secretary through the intercom and ordered her to reschedule his next appointments because an urgent matter came to his attention and told her to summon the publisher responsible for the Academy textbooks for a discussion immediately.

"Koharu, Homura, we will decided what to do with Naruto's ties with the Kaguya at a latter date after I solve this issue with the Uzumaki. Kakashi-kun, if Naruto joins your team before this indefinite date, I will want you in the reunion as well for your input will surely be useful".

"Yes, Hokage-sama!", told the three of them.

"Also, Kakahi-kun, you may tell Naruto a little about the Uzumaki, but I'll leave what to your discretion".

"Yes, Sir"!

"You're all dismissed".

And they left.

After puffing his pipe a little, Hiruzen sighed and massaged his temples. He knew he would have a headache after that meeting, he just didn't imagine the reason or the severity of it before.

"Now, to wait Haruno-san to get here".

_And now, turning back the time back to just after Kakashi leaving Team 7 in the rooftop_...

There was an awkward silence after Kakashi left.

No one knew what to say after the revelations the jounin made. Sasuke didn't seem like he wanted to say anything, but he also didn't leave his spot.

The truth is that Sasuke was starting to sympathize a little with the Dead-last, now that he knew the idiot didn't just mention a clan in another attempt at calling attention to himself like he used to do in the Academy. And by the way their potential sensei reacted when the Pink Annoyance told him they never heard about it, it was supposed to be quite a respected clan. Maybe in the Uchiha Library they had something...? No, those two were just obstacles in his path to kill Itachi.

"... Sooo...", 'pinkie' broke the silence, "an Eternal Alliance, eh"?

"Yeah...", told the idiot, still in shock. The three fell in a uncomfortable silence again.

"Did you mean the Uzumaki when you said you would like to know more about your clan, Naruto?", tried again the fangirl.

"No, I didn't even know there was an Uzumaki Clan before, I was talking about the Kaguya".

"Kaguya? Never heard about it", admitted the pink-girl.

"Never did I before I discovered I was one of them", confessed the imbecile. How he could not know about his clan?, "But it probably isn't so surprising, considering the Kaguya were killed by Kiri".

What? So he wasn't the only heir of a dead clan? This made Sasuke feel some kind of kinship with the other boy, maybe they could... ? No, he was a Lone Wolf, an Avenger, he shouldn't let stupid things like feelings or friendship get in the way of his obsession...

"And now I discover I'm from another forgotten clan", snorted Naruto in a self-deprecating manner, "Heh, it's just my luck"...

… But again, he wouldn't kill ITachi today so maybe he could help another fellow dead-clan-heir to find something about himself. Besides, if they were going to be a team maybe they should work together to take the most out of the training... Yes, perhaps they could even help him kill the bastard in the future, after all He could very well create an organization full of canon fodder and it would be a waste of Sasuke's energy to fight the endless waves of meat shields Itachi would send to weaken him before their Final Battle, so this way he could save his powers to kill the traitor. Yeah, he sould just keep telling himself that...

"The... Library of my clan may have something on the Uzumaki and Kaguya", suggested Sasuke suddenly.

The other two stared at him, making him uncomfortable. He knew he shouldn't have opened his mouth, but he already did. What could he do? If he was in the idiot's... no, Naruto's place he would feel the same way.

"Are you... offering to help me, bastard?", Naruto asked for confirmation.

"Don't insult Sasuke like that, idiot", said Sakura with no real intention of scolding him. It was probably just out of habit she did it.

"... Well... not really...", stammered Sasuke, disparately trying to maintain his image of cold and uncaring lone wolf and failing abysmally, "It's just... we're going to be team mates, which means we will fight together... and if you end up discovering some technique from your clans, you won't get in my way... Yeah, I'm just doing it so you won't become a liability in the long run, that's it, I'm not offering my library so you can research about your clans because I can imagine I would feel the same as you, no, not at all".

Naruto just stared at Sasuke. Sakura was just turning her head between the two and trying to make sense of Sasuke's words, when Naruto smirked at him and said:

"How did you become a ninja by lying so badly, Sasuke"?

"I-idiot, I'm not lying or anything! I'm just making sure you won't kill us all"!

"Suuure you do!", teased Naruto, "I didn't know I was so awesome even you would feel like that about me, Sasuke"!

"Shut up! Are you coming with me or not!", replied Sasuke, his cheeks red.

It was then that Sakura (mis-)understood everything and flew to the floor with such a massive nosebleed that looked like she had just being affected by the Sexy no Jutsu.

Both Naruto and Sasuke stared at her as she twitched with a happy, dreamy and scary grin in her face.

"Wow, I didn't know she was such a big of a pervert!", finally remarked Naruto after spending a few minutes staring at the perverted smile in Sakura-chan's face...

* * *

**Author's notes**:

12/03/2012: And... CUT! That's it for the third chapter. Sorry, I couldn't resist making the yaoi joke in the final of the chapter after making Sasuke act like such a Tsundere, but those who don't like NaruSasu, don't worry, this is not going anywhere except as a possible running gag. Those who like NaruSasu, I'm sorry but I'll just be using this as nothing else other than a joke.

Now, about this chapter: I intended to make this chapter a little longer but when I got to Naruto's remark I just knew the chapter should end there.


	4. Ch 04: Lack of Information

_**Chapter IV**:_

_Lack of Information_

After waking Sakura up (and she throwing herself on Sasuke claiming he shouldn't follow that path doesn't matter how exciting it would be), the three went to the Uchiha District so they could search about the Uzumaki and the Kaguya.

When the provisional Team 7 got the the Uchiha District, Naruto was amazed by the big gates in the front:

"Wow, this place is huge! Is all that just for you"?

"Nowadays yes, but this used to be a place were all the Uchiha in the Village used to live in", explained Sasuke, "It is, however, quite lonely now", mumbled him right after.

"Said something, Sasuke?", asked Naruto.

"Nothing, the library is this way".

The trio walked through the ghost district and the longer they walked the more the other two realized the place was frigging creepy.

Sakura considered suggesting him to move from the place and maybe even go live with her because it couldn't be healthy for him to live in such a scary district, but she thought better and decided he most likely wouldn't hear her and maybe even hate her for it, so she kept quiet, even if she was feeling goosebumps running her spine.

"Man, this place is definitely haunted", remarked Naruto, voicing exactly what her thoughts were, "Thankfully it is still day so we won't see any ghosts around, but I think it's better if we go home before it turns dark".

Sasuke just ignored him while taking them to their objective. Maybe he also thought that?

"How can you stand those ghosts anyway, Sasuke?", continued Naruto, probably just trying to cover the silence so he wouldn't get so scared.

"I've never seen any ghost, dead-last", replied Sasuke finally, "and stop talking and just follow me".

"What?! At what time you go to bed, bastard?", continued the other boy, "There is no way there aren't ghosts here"!

"Ghosts don't exist, dumbass", explained Sasuke in a tone you would use when explaining a simple concept to someone who's too slow to understand.

"Of course they do!", insisted the white-haired boy, "I've seen one when I was a kid"!

"You still _are_ a kid, imbecile", snorted Sasuke.

And they continued like that for a while, making the tension in the air drop steadily. Soon, even Sakura joined in the discussion (on Sasuke's side of course) and they relaxed a bit...

"For the last time you retard, _ghosts_... _don't_... _EXIST_! They are just a myth used to scare little kids so they would behave themselves! And... Oh, we're here", eventually said Sasuke.

"Finally! It was about time!", said Naruto happy to finally get to their goal.

"So, let's begin", instructed Sasuke.

For the next hours they spent reading through books and more books and journals and more journals trying to find any mention of the Kaguya or the Uzumaki, but it was futile as far as they had looked there wasn't any mention to either clan. They found, however, some mentions to the Village of Uzushio.

According to the notes written by the Uchiha cartographers, Uzushio was in an island ruled by the Senju, located near the shore of Fire Country. Apparently Uzushio was a 'spare' village for Konoha that would be used to house the Konoha ninjas, or at least those affiliated to the Senju, if the main Village was destroyed for some reason, but it seems the opposite happened and it was Uzushio that was destroyed and the survivors went to Konoha and other places of the world.

They would have continued the research, if Naruto didn't see through the window and notice that it almost night, so he turned to his team mates and said:

"Let's continue this tomorrow, guys, it is almost night and I wouldn't like to be in this place when dark".

"What? Is it already that late?", realized Sakura, "Oh, no! If I don't get home soon I'm going to be in so much trouble"!

"Okay, I think I should get ready to sleep too, let me take you to the exit", agreed Sasuke.

When they were at the gate, Sakura asked:

"Do any of you want me to bring some more books to help the research? My father's the publisher of the Academy books, maybe I could bring some other book"?

"No, I don't think it will be necessary", told Sasuke.

"I don't know, I think it could help if we got some maps of different years to compare", reflected Naruto.

"Oh, since when you think, dead-last?", smirked the Uchiha.

"Bastard! Just because I don't try to think much it doesn't means I can't"!

"Don't insult Sasuke-kun like that, Naruto"!

And they bickered a little bit more before saying their goodbyes for the day.

_Now, dear reader, I could end this chapter now, but there is still a side of this day I would like to tell you; it will start a 'side-plot' which will be related to the main plot in the future; unfortunately, these happenings occur while the future Team 7 was still researching the Uzumaki and Kaguya in the Uchiha Library, so we will have to turn back the clock a little. I hope you won't mind much_:

Haruno Kizashi (a tall man with greying pink hair in the shape of a cherry blossom, amazing sideburns that met into a moustache, blue eyes and tanned skin) received the summons from the Hokage so he went straight to the Hokage's office, all the time wondering what could he have done for that to happen.

This Haruno Kizashi was the father of Haruno Sakura and husband of Haruno Mebuki (a tall, fair-skinned, blond woman with green eyes). He and his wife were Academy Graduates that failed the teamwork test when they were children, but instead of trying to become a ninja again, they decided to live as civilians from that point on.

So Kizashi ended up working in a library, then a publishing company and finally the Editor-in-Chief of the publishing company he was nowadays working on.

Mebuki, on the other hand, started working first as a cook and waitress in some of the Ninja Bars in Konoha, before being discovered by the owner of a traditional chain of restaurants in the Village who contracted her after tasting her dango (which would later become one of her future daughter's favourites foods) and she accepted; she did, however, maintain contact with some of her friends from the times she worked in bars, which is useful for when she wants to gossip.

Anyway, Kizashi was a good worker and he took his job seriously, which is why he climbed the ranks in the publishing house so fast, so he was never called by the Hokage due to problems in his work, or even for anything besides delivering the new books and even then, neither the Hokage called him nor did he deliver personally if he didn't want to, for he had trustworthy employees for that. All in all, that was the first time he was ordered to meet the Hokage personally, so he was naturally nervous and trembling.

Even so, he still obeyed the Sandaime and went to the Hokage Tower, which he reached too fast for his taste, and even faster he was sent to the Hokage Office and saw himself meeting the Hokage face-to-face:

"I'm so glad you answered my summon so quickly, Haruno-san", began the Sandaime staring right into the eye of Kizashi with obvious angry and even a little bit of hostility in his expression. At least it was made clear the Sandaime was restraining himself to act civil.

"I-I thought it was better if I didn't make you wait, Hokage-sama", told Kizashi, bowing.

"Thank you for your consideration, Haruno-san", answered the Sandaime, "Well, you see, recently a worrying data reached me".

Kizashi started sweating cold. What could it be? He didn't remember doing anything that would worry the Professor recently, he was a loyal Konoha citizen and he never did anything to harm the Village. He would even offer his life to protect his home; even though he wasn't a graduated ninja, he still remembered something about his time in the Academy.

"Haruno-san", said the Hokage firmly, deciding to finally get to the point "Did you know that parts of our history are missing from our Academy Textbooks"?

"What?", that got Kizashi by surprise.

"I've learned recently that important parts of Konoha's History aren't in the books of our Ninja Academy students and as you're the responsible for those books I wonder, did you know that our textbooks aren't complete"?

"Is that true, Hokage-sama?", frowned Kizashi. He was sure the books had everything the Village deemed safe enough to put in there.

"That means you didn't know"?

"Hokage-sama, one of the things I allow me to take pride on is my work and how serious I am about it, so if there is anything missing in the texts, I will do everything in my power to rectify this error", answered Kizashi firmly.

"Oh, is that so?", the Professor raised an eyebrow at the younger man's confidence in his words, "Then, in how much time could you put the Uzumaki back into our History"?

"The Uzumaki, Sir?", Kizashi frowned once again, this time in confusion, "Are you sure"?

"Why, yes I am, why wouldn't I"?

"Because, Sir, I'm sure you told the Publishing Houses to not publish anything about the Uzumaki after the... incident twelve years ago".

"What are you talking about? I never such an order", now it was Sarutobi who frowned.

"No? But I remember receiving a memorandum signed by you which said to not put the Uzumaki name anywhere so no other Village could discover our, and I quote, 'main weapon'", replied Kizashi.

"That's stupid", answered Sarutobi, "I wouldn't order such a thing, even because it would be useless. Even if we erased the Uzumaki from our history, the Uzumaki themselves were so famous and feared that they were destroyed during the wars, which means the other Villages would still remember the Uzumaki and Uzushio, so the only way this could possibly work was if we erased the data from all the Villages in the world and not only we don't have enough manpower for that, it would be much more useful if instead of erasing some files we stole the same amount of data from our enemies. Besides, the only thing that can result from erasing our greatest ally from our history would be a weakening of the relationships of Konoha with our other allies and even if that was the goal, there would be many more immediate ways that could be as effective as, so this order just doesn't makes sense"!

"... I'm very sorry Hokage-sama", bowed Kizashi, who now that he thought about it noticed it really didn't make much sense to do that, "I'll do as you say as soon as I return to my job".

"Good, you may leave now", nodded the Hokage slowly but as Kizashi was excusing himself, the Sandaime decided to give a few more words, "Oh, by the way, Haruno-san".

"Yes, Sir"?

"Do you still have this 'memorandum'"?

"Yes, Sir".

"Good, then please bring me it so I can check it".

"Yes, Sir"!

"Okay, you're dismissed then".

After the younger man left the office, Sarutobi leaned on his chair and puffed his pipe once again as he reflected about the talk he just had.

It seems someone he didn't know was trying to give orders in his place. He should start assembling an ANBU team for the investigation, but the first clue was surely going to be the fake memorandum. Maybe he should call the former members the old Konoha Police Force who joined ANBU? They would, after all, have some experience with this kind of thing...

And whoever was sabotaging his Village was going to pay dearly!

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

12/06/2012: Wow, this chapter was a little hard to write. There was a point I jus't didn't know how to continue from, but after trying hard I finally found a way!

Anyway, I hope you won't mind the 'side-plot', it actually wasn't my intention to write anything like it, but when I was writing the meeting between Sakura's father and Sarutobi I just noticed I had something with a great pottention for a side-story. Besides, it _does_ have some relation to the main plot, though to be honest I think one of the greatest reasons I decided to do that is because I got unsatisfied with the story's pace so to not bore neither you nor myself I chose to try something harder, but because I'm an amateur I'm not sure if it will be actually good, so any remark, suggestion or whatever it will be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and keep in mind that not necessarily this secondary plot will take over the main one or even appear in all chapters from now on.


	5. Ch 05: Day 0 of the Team

_**Chapter V**:_

_Day 0 of the Team_

The next day, Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were in the Training Ground 03 at 8 o'clock, exactly like Kakashi said. But _he_ wasn't there yet, so the three sat in the ground and awaited him and only after a long time did Kakashi appear:

"Yo!", greeted him as if it nothing was wrong.

"You're late!", chorused Naruto and Sakura while Sasuke just made a face.

"Well, I see you're all here", Kakashi ignored the accusations, "I've spoken with the Hokage and he left what to tell you to my discretion, but as this would be part of our training, you need to actually become my students yet".

"And how's that supposed to work?", complained Naruto.

"Simple, you have to pass my test to see if you can actually be genins", Kakashi smiled (or at least that was the impression he gave with only one eye visible).

"But sensei, we already passed the Graduation Exam", told Sakura.

"Oh", said Kakashi, still smiling, "that test was just to see who had a chance of becoming a genin".

"WHAT"?!

"You see, there's still one more test before a team becomes a team in Konoha, a test given by the Jounin-sensei. The test however is a very hard one and only a third, at most, of the graduates actually become ninjas. To be honest I was supposed to tell you that yesterday so you could prepare and not eat breakfast so you wouldn't throw up but when I found out how much information you lacked I decided to tell you today. To compensate however, I'm going to allow you to go back home for a few hours so you can get whatever tool you deem necessary for my test", Kakashi said all that while still smiling with his visible eye, which made them even more worried, "just keep in mind it is a 'survival' test and that it is better if you don't have lunch before returning. I'll be waiting for you here. Whoever fails the test will be sent back to the Academy. You have 'till noon to get ready and whoever isn't here by 1 o'clock will immediately fail. Your preparation time begins now".

And the three went running back to their homes to get whatever tools they would need for a survival test even if they wanted to ask many questions but they knew by the tone in Kakashi's voice he was being very serious.

When the team came back exactly at 1 pm, Kakashi was sitting next to the three stumps in the field, reading a little orange book and there was an alarm clock on top of one stump. Without looking at them he said:

"Good, you're all here, let's start our test".

Without putting the book back in his pouch, Kakashi pulled two bells and explained:

"As you can see I have two bells here, your task is to take one of them from me before the clock rings. If one of you doesn't gets a bell, that person will fail, be tied to one of those stumps, forced to watch me as I eat in front of him or her and of course, be sent back to the Academy. You have until 3:00 pm to do it, you also may use any weapon you want to fight me, after all, there's no way one of you will get one if you're not ready to kill. On my sign"...

"But, sensei, you'll be in danger!", told Sakura.

"She's right!", claimed Naruto, "It's three against one, even a jounin will be killed"!

"Heh", chuckled Kakashi, "A jounin killed by three Academy Graduates? Ha! Don't underestimate ninjas!", threatened the man, focusing a little bit of Killing Intent in the three of them for only a second and no sooner he began he stopped, even so the students still sweated cold, "Did I make my point now"?

The three nodded.

"Good, on your marks...", they all tensed their bodies, "GO!", and jumped to action.

Sasuke and Sakura hid themselves, Kakashi created distance from his potential genins and saw himself near the river that crossed the field while Naruto...

"Come on, fight me!", seemingly disregarded any notion of sneaking.

(Beat)

"... You know, I think you forgot what 'stealth' means", snarked Kakashi.

"Hey! I know what 'stealth' is! I just want to have a direct fight!", replied Naruto, with his arms crossed.

Both Sasuke and Sakura only stared as they concluded Naruto didn't want to be a _ninja_.

Kakashi was silent for a while, before he sighed and remarked:

"I see now why he was dead-last".

That struck a nerve in Naruto who, cursing, jumped towards the older ninja and readied a punch when Kakashi moved his arm and Naruto, noticing that, stopped his advance to see what the opponent would do next, but Kakashi only started reading his book again.

(Beat)

"Are you underestimating me?!", screamed an enraged Naruto who charged towards Kakashi ready to break the nose of the irritating guy who wasn't taking him seriously, but Kakashi blocked the punch, then Naruto tried to hit him with his knee, but Kakashi crouched and dodged it and Naruto tried punching him again but Kakashi wasn't there any more, instead he was behind Naruto.

"A ninja shouldn't be caught from behind, idiot", told Kakashi making a seal with his hands.

"Run Naruto, you're going to die!", called Sakura.

"Too late", said Kakashi before calling "_Konohagakure Hiden Taijutsu Ougi: Sennen Goroshi_" and inserting his fingers up Naruto's ass, who was sent flying. That definitely hurt in more ways than one.

Except Naruto burst in smoke and Kakashi soon realized:

"Kage Bunshin"?!

"That's right!", said Naruto's voice from behind Kakashi who turned to see Naruto stretching his hand for the bells in Kakashi's belt.

The jounin immediately caught the boy's hand and threw him towards the river nearby, but the boy managed to twist his body before he fell in the water.

"That was an unexpected trick, Naruto, but I'm not going to be caught by it again", congratulated Kakashi, lifting his book to his face.

"I won't need it", challenged Naruto, summoning four more Kage Bunshin, "Charge"!

The five Narutos attacked Kakashi who just dodged all the attacks and countered by kicking them around, dispelling all the shadow clones, but Naruto summoned more and kept attacking and missing.

Now, dear reader, you may think Naruto was just being stubborn and stupid but he actually had a plan and that was because of different decisions he took in this universe because of his Kekkei Genkai.

Because in this time line Naruto decided to play with a bone yo-yo he made (that he still had somewhere by the way) while awaiting Kakashi's arrival, Naruto didn't set the blackboard eraser 'trap' to punish the jounin for his lateness, so Kakashi didn't fall for the unexpected and so childish prank that he couldn't believe an Academy Graduate would still resort to such tactics, resulting in Naruto starting with a little bit more respect for the adult ninja, respect which coupled with the little free demonstration of killing intent made Naruto decide it would be better if he first analysed his opponent for openings in his guard.

That was the reason the boy used Kage Bunshin to begin his assault on Kakashi. However, because of Naruto's impulsiveness and childishness he was easily angered by Kakashi's remark, making Naruto ignore his good sense (of which he didn't even have much to begin with anyway) and his own strategy; only after failing to capture the bell Naruto remembered his own idea and chose to follow it because he was reminded he shouldn't underestimate the jounin.

And that was the reason he was summoning more and more Kage Bunshin. Of course, the only thing Naruto was consciously thinking about was in stealing the bell, so not even himself had a very precise idea of what he was doing, so obviously the plan wasn't working very well and as Kakashi was _still_ reading the orange book, Naruto was getting more and more impatient after each clone wave, until he couldn't take it any more and summoned almost a dozen Kage Bunshin and attacked together with his clones. This time he almost caught the elder ninja by grabbing him from behind and jumping to punch Kakashi's face but the future sensei used Kawarimi and swapped himself with one the Narutos, who then proceeded to beat each other up because they concluded Kakashi had used Henge until one of them had the brilliant idea of dispelling the clones so they could find out who was the fake one. When the boy understood that the masked ninja hadn't used Henge he almost felt like crying. Almost.

Then he saw one of the bells under the shade of a tree and concluded (wrongly) that the sensei dropped one bell while escaping but predictably that wasn't the case and the boy fell into a simple trap.

'It figures, he _is_ a jounin after all', was the thought that crossed Naruto's mind while he was hanging upside down.

"Don't just use your jutsus without a plan, or it may be turned on you", lectured Kakashi picking up the bell from the floor, "And please, for your own sake and those of your team mates, don't just hurry into such obvious traps, you may end up dying this way".

"Damn it"!

"A ninja should always see what's underneath the underneath".

"I know that"!

"If you really did you wouldn't fall for these kinds of things".

That was when Sasuke saw an opening in Kakashi's guard and threw many weapons at him but it wasn't really an opening so when Kakashi used Kawarimi, Sasuke realized it was a trap so the jounin could discover his position. Sasuke then tried to reposition himsel but it was useless because now Kakashi had his track.

The older ninja considered going after Sakura before testing Sasuke, but instead he decided to go after Sasuke first because he was closer, so soon they found themselves in another part of the training site, a clearing with a lot of empty space to dodge, fight and use jutsus.

"What are you going to do, Sasuke-kun", greeted Kakashi after the Uchiha stopped and turned.

"You would love to know, wouldn't you?", replied Sasuke getting into a battle stance.

"Of course", smiled Kakashi.

They stood silently for a while before the boy jumped into action by first throwing a few shurikens that were naturally avoided as that was Sasuke's plan, who then charged towards the sensei with a kunai in hand with the intention of stabbing the jounin in the split seconds he would take to defend the metal stars; the problem was that Sasuke underestimated Kakashi's reflexes which were quick enough for him to sidestep the thrown weapons and grab the boy's hand, following with a kick that sent the boy flying one metre and a half.

Sasuke had been thrown in such a manner that he could fall head first in the floor (which, naturally, could case the kind of head trauma that was never welcome) and if he tried to break his fall it would leave too much of an opening for the jounin to hit him again while in the air.

However, Sasuke didn't give up yet so he flipped in the air while making a certain sequence of seals very quickly and called while spinning in the air:

"_Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu_!", resulting in a big arc of fire, almost a wheel, being formed around him.

Kakashi was impressed Sasuke was able to use a chuunin-level technique as a genin candidate and specially in such a creative fashion. It was an impressive sight indeed, but Kakashi couldn't help and wonder if it wasn't hot there. Well, considering how Sasuke was sweating and how his clothes were a little burned after he was on his feet again, it seems it was quite a bit:

"I've never seem someone use this jutsu like that", told Kakashi, eye-smiling, "It was very creative how you used such a purely offensive technique in a manner that was also defensive because it could hurt your enemy if he or she didn't approach you with care, giving you a bigger chance to break the fall. If you trained this you could end up with an unexpected counter-attack. I'm impressed".

Sasuke just smirked cockily.

"Nevertheless you will need a lot more than just that to beat me", declared Kakashi soon after dropping his eye-smile and followed with another sequence of seals, "_Fuuton: Daitoppa_" and exhaled a gust of wind towards Sasuke so strong he was sent flying into a tree and knocked out.

"I wonder if I was too hard on him now", said Kakashi, restarting to read his orange book, "Whatever, that just leaves Sakura now. Let's see, I've already used Taijutsu and Ninjutsu, maybe I should use Genjutsu next"...

It was pathetically easy to make Sakura faint however. So pathetically easy indeed that I'm going to skip it because it was _that_ lame. It's enough to say that all Kakashi did was surprise her and use a genjutsu (_Magen: Narakumi no Jutsu_) and soon after she fainted. Poor kid, if she couldn't even see her worst fears she should give up being a ninja.

It was then that the alarm clock ringed, marking the ending of the time limit, which was very good for Naruto because it ringed just as he decided to eat the lunch boxes which would have resulted in him be tied to one of the tree trunks. So, naturally, in the end it was Sakura who was tied to the stump.

"You guys seem to be hungry", commented Kakashi when he head the growling stomachs of the genin candidates. They just stared at him, but he ignored them and continued, eye-smiling, "By the way, you don't need to be sent back to the Academy".

"Really?", smiled back Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke just made a smug 'hn' noise.

"Yes", confirmed Kakashi before changing his expression and giving his verdict, "YOU SHOULD QUIT BEING NINJAS"!

"What?! Why"?!

"Because you're just brats that don't understand what it takes to be a ninja"!

Sasuke wasn't amused. Indeed, he got so pissed he charged against Kakashi again, but in the next second he saw himself in the floor with a jounin sitting on him with his foot on his head.

"See? You're just brats".

"Don't step on Sasuke-kun!", cried Sakura, who was ignored again.

"Are you making fun of ninjas?", scolded Kakashi, "Can't you understand the reason you're divided in teams, huh"?

"What do you mean?", replied Naruto.

"It means you're not understanding the point of this test"!

"And what is it, sensei?", asked an intimidated Sakura.

"... Teamwork", answered Kakashi after some contemplation, "You see, this test was made to force disagreement within the team so we could see who was going to forsake his or her own interests given the circumstances. Individual skill is certainly important for a ninja, but knowing how to work in a team is even more important, because against a very strong foe individual skill will usually not be enough! For example this test, if you three tried working together you may have been able to take the bells from me, but you guys... Sakura! Even though you knew were Naruto was you were only thinking about Sasuke! Naruto! Instead of considering taking help from the others you just charged as if you were the only one that could complete the test! Sasuke! You just decided the others would get in your way and, like Naruto, attacked as if you were the only with the skills to pull this off"!

The academy graduates couldn't say anything because they knew he was right.

"Decisions that don't take in consideration your team mates can have tragic consequences", continued the man, pulling a kunai from his pouch and putting it near Sasuke's neck, "For example... Naruto, kill Sakura or Sasuke dies"!

"What?!", replied Naruto, not believing his ears.

"This kind of thing could happen", said Kakashi, putting his kunai back into his pouch, Sakura sighed in relief, "Not only is one of your comrades immobilized, you are forced to take tough choices while you yourself are effectively rendered helpless".

Kakashi got up and turned to the stone in one of the corners of the training field:

"You see this stone? In it are written the names of all of the greatest heroes Konoha ever had".

'Hero'? Now that was something Naruto liked the sound of, deciding to have his name carved there, and he said as much in a loud voice, but for some reason Kakashi seemed to get even more sombre than before:

"But those are not the usual kind of heroes".

"No? Than what kind of heroes are they"?

Kakashi got silent for some moments.

"Hey, what kind of heroes are they?", repeated Naruto.

"... They are heroes that died in the service of the Village, this is a memorial".

That shocked the three of them.

"My best friend's name is also there".

A solemn silence befell the grounds. Not even Naruto felt like talking in that moment. All in respect to those who died in missions.

"... I'm going to give you three another chance", declared Kakashi suddenly, "After you eat I'll allow you to try again, but I'm warning now, it will be even more difficult to get the bells later. Eat now, but don't give any to Sakura".

"Why?", cried her.

"Because you had the worst performance of all, even Naruto tried harder than you", justified their future sensei as he was disappearing from their view, "By the way, whoever disobey me will fail automatically".

The next minutes were spent as Naruto and Sasuke were eating while Sakura's stomach rumbled, embarrassing her. Naruto stopped eating and turned to her, his expression clearly showing he was having an inner debate that seemed to be quickly finished.

"What?", said Sakura when she saw he was looking at her intently, though it may have sounded a little harsher than she wanted.

Naruto then stood up and pulled a kunai from his pouch with a decided and serious face.

Sakura couldn't help but think for a moment that he was going to stab her before she squashed that thought immediately after. Naruto would never do that to her, not after all the times he tried inviting her to a date. Though she did consider that maybe she should have accepted at least one of the invitations when Naruto approximated his kunai to her.

Nonetheless she shouldn't have worried, because all Naruto did was cut her ropes, untying her.

She blinked. And blinked again when Naruto extended his lunch box to her:

"What are you doing, Naruto"?

"I just couldn't see you starving any longer", smiled Naruto, "Besides, even if I fail now I'll just have to try again next chance I get and as I can now use an even better version of the Bunshin no Jutsu I'm sure I'll manage it next time, so don't worry about me".

Sakura was quite touched by Naruto's actions and words.

"Hmm, I agree with the dead-last for once", mentioned Sasuke ("Bastard", commented Naruto), a shadow of a smile in his face, "Here, Sakura, you can have a little bit of mine too".

Now Sakura was definitely touched, so touched that she was almost crying of joy for having such considerate team mates. If she had to go back to the Academy with them she hoped they would be with her as well.

But their joy was short-lived, for just as she was going to thank them a dark cloud with thunder and lightning loomed over the field…

"You guys...!", and a furious Hatake Kakashi appeared over them, "... Pass!", and just as suddenly the dark clouds disappeared and a smiling Hatake Kakashi informed them of their success.

All either of the three could say was:

"What"?

"Congratulations, you were the firsts to pass my test. The others were just a bunch of morons that would just do whatever I said", told their sensei, "You see, in the ninja word those that break our rules are called trash, but honestly? In my opinion, those who abandon their team mates are worse than trash".

He didn't know it, but that just raised Team 7's opinions of their sensei.

"Well done, tomorrow morning, Team 7 will officially start it's duties", declared Kakashi with a thumbs-up.

"We did it!", cheered Naruto, who was the first of the newest official genins of Konoha to recover from the shock and soon after the other joined in his enthusiasm. Kakashi just smiled at them and let them enjoy their 'promotion' for a little bit more. Only when their spirits calmed a little did he speak to them again:

"Well, now that you are Team 7, I think it is in good interest if I taught you a few things about Uzushio and the Uzumaki as promised".

Only after everyone was paying complete attention to him did Kakashi begin:

"First of all, I suppose you three know about the founding of Konoha and how the Uchiha and the Senju put their differences aside after ages of battle and founded our Village, right"?

They nodded. That was one of the few lessons Naruto actually paid attention to so even he knew about it.

"Okay, so maybe it would be better if I started talking about the relationship between the Uzumaki and the Senju because the Uzumaki are older than Uzushio. You see, the Uzumaki and the Senju were very old allies. It is still unknown which clan came first but this doesn't matter for us. What matters is that the Senju and the Uzumaki were related".

That surprised the three genin.

"How closely related they were, Kakashi-sensei?", asked Sakura.

"It's not very clear, but most scholars believe they weren't that closely related, being as close as second cousins, but there are some theories that they are much closer than originally believed, a few archaeologists claim to have found proof that they were once the same clan before splitting up which makes them sibling clans but most other archaeologists aren't really convinced of that", said Kakashi, shrugging his shoulders and continuing, "The Uzumaki were renowned by their amazing life force, their fiery temper and their deep red hair".

"But wait, Naruto isn't a red-head!", noticed Sakura.

"Yes, but not all Uzumaki were, only most of them. Anyway, sometime after Konoha was built and the other ninjas realized this system actually worked, the Uzumaki also built their village, Uzushio"...

"Wait, but yesterday, when we were searching anything about the Uzumaki and the Kaguya, I've read that Uzushio was just a 'spare' Village for the Senju!", interrupted Sasuke honestly confused.

"Oh, you decided to make some research on your own, did you?", answered the sensei, "I bet you used the Uchiha Library for that. Am I right?", when the trio nodded, Kakashi eye-smiled and told, "The Uchiha were biased, don't trust them".

"Eh"?

"They probably considered the Uzumaki only an extension of the Senju and not the independent clan they were, so it's easy to see how they reached such conclusion", explained the jounin-sensei, "I'm sure the book you searched on was written by an Uchiha. Isn't that so"?

"Huh, yes, I think so", said Sasuke sheepishly.

"Then there you are. But they were wrong, Uzushio was a completely different village from Konoha, even if we were very close allies, closer than even Suna and Konoha nowadays. Uzushio was also known as the 'Village of Longevity' because the people that lived there used to have very long lifespans, probably because of their vitality. Unfortunately, however, Uzushio was destroyed in the many wars that happened in the continent in the last hundred years and the survivors were scattered across the world. Even so, Konoha ninjas still use the symbol of the Uzumaki and Uzushio in their vests and clothes in honour of that friendship".

The genin were speechless for a few moments while they absorbed all this information, so Kakashi-sensei used this moment of respite to check the hours in the alarm clock and noticed it was already almost sunset, so he turned to his students and told:

"Well, I guess that's enough History for some time, it is almost night so you three can go home. Meet me tomorrow, at 7:00 am in this same field. We will then begin our training as Team 7".

And he disappeared, leaving the newest team of Konoha genin to return home so they could get ready for their lives as ninjas...

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

12/09/2012: I hoped to continue the side plot in this chapter, but I didn't find a point to put it so I'll leave for the next time. Also, I could have told everything that happened during the Bell Test, but it wasn't really that different from canon's so I decided to skip it, but I'm considering rewriting that part so it won't be the same scene from the anime/manga, however I don't have the inspiration for that now, probably because I wanted to get this over with soon so I could just advance the story to a more interesting arc, so If I'll rewrite it, it will be when I get more interested on it.

Edit 12/17/2012: Wow, now that was tough! To be honest I could've already published this chapter one week ago and some days. In fact I did publish ir - for about thirty minutes (I think) - but then I decided that it just wouldn't be fair to just skip the whole bell test for a while and go to the next chapter when I intended in coming back to this chapter and rewrite that scene in the future, so I deleted it, forced me to actually do my work and then publish it properly.

And _that's_ the reason I took so long to release Chapter V; that and the fact that this chapter ended up being a lot longer than I wanted but whatever, now I'm satisfied with the 5th chapter.


	6. Ch 06: Day 1 of the Team

_**Chapter VI**:_

_Day 1 of the Team_

06:30 am

The next morning, Team 7 was waiting their sensei in the same training ground they used the day before. But _he_ wasn't there yet.

"Man, is he going to always be late?", whined Naruto.

"Shut it", told Sasuke, with a bored expression, even if he actually agreed with Naruto there.

"Is he going to always makes us wait?", moaned Sakura.

"I hope not, otherwise we will spend more time waiting him than training!", complained Naruto.

Unfortunately yes, not only was Kakashi-sensei going to keep them waiting this time as he would many and many more times.

08:00 am

"Yo!", finally Kakashi-sensei appeared, "Sorry, I got lost on the road of life", told him.

"You're late!", chorused both Naruto and Sakura, who were as usual ignored by Kakashi.

"Well, today we begin your training", told Kakashi-sensei, "But as your training will be hard, we will always begin with some stretching so you won't hurt yourselves in a lasting manner".

"Roger".

"Now, let's begin".

08:15 am

"Okay, now that we are properly warmed-up and stretched, let's begin the training properly, but before that let me clarify some misconceptions genin usually have about what makes a ninja and what a jounin-sensei's role is".

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke focused all their attentions on him.

"First of all: It's not the role of the jounin-sensei to teach jutsus to the genin".

"What? Then how are we going to become awesome ninjas if you won't teach us jutsus?", interrupted a scandalized Naruto.

"Be quiet, Naruto, sensei hasn't finished speaking yet!", said Sakura while Inner Sakura was yelling 'He better have a good reason to not teach us jutsus or I'm going to poison him'!

"Thank you Sakura", said Kakashi, eye-smiling, "Before I answer your question, Naruto, let me finish: it is not the role of the jounin-sensei to teach his or her genins jutsus, but under special circumstances the jounin-sensei may do so, therefore usually if a genin want to learn new jutsus, he or she will have to learn from their clans, search and study by themselves, or convince a more experienced ninja to accept said genin as a full-time apprentice, Got it"?

They nodded.

"Second: there is much more in being a ninja than just knowing jutsus. Indeed, usually a ninja only starts learning a big number of jutsus _after_ they've already gained an almost legendary status in the shinobi world. Therefore a ninja isn't strong _because_ they know many jutsus, it's the contrary, they learn many jutsus because they _already _are strong. And that's the jounin-sensei's role: to make the ninjas that strong".

"Roger!", said Sakura and Naruto of Team 7, Sasuke just nodded again.

"Now that we are clear let's start. First you will run five laps around this field reinforcing your limbs with chakra, then you will run in an obstacle course I'll make in the middle of the trees back there and after that you will have to redo the course until 09:00 am. Go"!

09:00 am

"Good", said Kakashi-sensei looking at his already exhausted students, "What's wrong guys? Was the course too hard on you"?

"You damn bet it was!", snapped Naruto, "Honestly, what was with the snakes in a net falling from above? Or the pitfalls? Or the flying tens of kunais and shurikens? Are you trying to kill us?! And when did you have enough time to set all those traps anyway"?!

"Well, if you can still talk so much it means it wasn't nearly enough, next time I'm going to set up a couple more traps", affirmed sensei, eye-smiling.

"Good... work... Naruto!", grunted Sasuke, who was too tired to try speaking in his normal condescending voice.

Sakura was effectively dead to the world.

The three just stayed down, without enough strength to get up.

"Hmm, okay, five minutes break, then we're going to push our next exercise a little harder to compensate", said Kakashi after looking at his exhausted genin once again.

09:05 am

"Okay, now that you can stand up we will make our next series of exercises: unarmed katas. Today I'll only watch you performing the basic ones from the Academy so I can have a grasp of how well you've learned them".

Kakashi's conclusion about his students taijutsu were: Sakura's was exactly how the Academy teachers taught but she needed to customize it a little so she wouldn't be completely predictable, Naruto's was somewhat weird-looking but effective enough, he just needed to refine it better, as for Sasuke's, well, his moves were better then the other's but he still had a _long_ way to go before he was good enough for the former ANBU standards. In the end, Kakashi concluded that in unarmed combat his team was good enough for just-graduated students but they still needed to improve a lot before they went on missions. And he said as much to his genins.

"Oh, man! How long before we can go on our first mission?", whined Naruto rhetorically.

"As much as necessary for you to reach my standards", replied Kakashi eye-smiling.

10:00 am

"Let's proceed with armed katas then", ordered the jounin taking the genin to a shooting range where they could practice the sequences that used shuriken, "Same instructions as the last exercise".

The results were the same as before. It seems there wasn't any weapon genius in his team. But that's okay, they had much time to train yet.

11:00 am

"All right, that's enough katas for now. Now you will spar with me, first one-on-one and then as a team. No ninjutsu or genjutsu yet, only plain taijutsu. Sasuke, you first, then Naruto and last Sakura, then you three together. Sasuke come here and take your stance, good. Get ready... begin"!

12:00 pm

Needless to say, Kakashi won against all of them but it took more out of him than he expected. Yes they had many openings in their guards but they, specially Naruto and Sasuke, were relentless in their attack even if it was useless against him, thought it's the thought that counts in this case.

"Well, the training went a little better than I expected", congratulated Kakashi-sensei, making his team grin proud; he continued after he gave them some time to enjoy their temporary happiness he was most likely going to destroy soon", but there is still much for you to learn. We will continue with a similar schedule from today from now on, but I'll teach you different 'subjects' as I decide fit, You may go lunch now and go home if you so feel inclined. Good work and see you later", eye-smiled Kakashi-sensei as he disappeared.

"Okaaay, that was really cool", whistled Naruto before turning to his team-mates as if nothing out of the ordinary just happened, "Who wants to go to Ichiraku Ramen"?

Normally Sakura would flat out refuse Naruto's invitation and invite Sasuke to a date instead, but because of the results of the test the day before, Sakura was feeling somewhat indebted to Naruto, he _did_ after all free and give her food after she was tied to the stump, as did Sasuke and while she knew very well how she wanted to 'thank' Sasuke, she didn't know what to do about Naruto. Yes, she could accept his offer next time Naruto tried taking her to a date but she didn't want to give him hopes and Naruto's invitation just now wasn't exactly a date – in Sakura's opinion a date involved much more than going out to eat – so it didn't count as a date on her head but even so if she accepted the offer it was highly likely that he would get full of himself and start annoying her even more.

Hmm, what to do?

It was then that she had an idea:

"Sure", smiled her sweetly, deeply surprising both Naruto and Sasuke, what annoyed her ('What kind of image do they have of me?!' yelled Inner Sakura), "But only if Sasuke-kun comes with us".

That took them out of their surprise, violently. Sasuke was almost completely disagreeing when he saw Sakura's expression.

She was smiling, yes, but her eyes were slits, her grin was far too wide to mean anything good and he was sure that Sakura was using some kind of genjutsu to make him feel like that because there was no way he was actually that scared of what could be her retaliation if he didn't agree with her. For all the gods's sakes she was _Sakura_! There was absolutely no way _he_ was scared of _her_! She was just an annoying _fangirl_! That's how it was supposed to be! So why couldn't he just break he genjutsu, for it _had_ to be a genjutsu, nothing more or nothing less!

He was almost giving in, but he had a strong will so he forced himself to look at Naruto to see if he was horrified as him because there was no way _Naruto_ would accept eating with him, _Sasuke_, of all people. But what he saw made him despair even more, because Naruto was actually visibly _considering it_! No, this couldn't be! If Naruto gave in, Sasuke knew he would end up giving in as well! And he was completely averse to having lunch with either of them! It was already too much he had offered his library to help Naruto learn about one of his clans, he didn't want to actually become... _friends (shudder)_ with them!

"Gee, fine, but only if you sit between us, Sakura-chan, I don't want to sit beside him", replied Naruto crushing all of Sasuke's hopes in one devastating, merciless strike.

"Fine", said Sasuke resigned.

01:00 pm

The travel back to the village was uneventful as it was to get to the ramen stand. The only weird thing that Team 7 met was lots of glares. At first they thought the glares were directed at them and they started wondering why suddenly the whole village seemed to hate them but soon they realized the glares were not to them, but to Naruto who joyfully continued in his path obliviously. At that moment they wanted to have his ability to not pay attention.

"Hey, Old Man Teuchi!", greeted Naruto just as he entered the store.

"Hey, Naruto!", greeted the ramen stand owner, "How was your first day as a ninja"?

"It was hellish!", told Naruto, "First we had to almost die a lot of times, then we had train fighting for the next, what, three hours? And the sensei said he was going to make us train even harder"!

"Oh, you're enjoying then"?

"Yes! It was tough, but I'm sure I'll become Hokage in no time this way"!

The other two just stared at the discussion while the they sat on the counter, right in front of the owner. By the informal and civil way of greeting between the client and the clerk, Sakura and Sasuke reached the most obvious conclusion: Naruto was friends with the owners of the ramen stand.

"So who are those two with you, Naruto?", asked Teuchi right as the team sat in the stalls.

"Those two are my team-mates"...

"I'm back, dad!", said a girl entering the store.

"Hey, Ayame-nee-chan!", smiled Naruto.

"Oh, hello, Naruto-kun!", greeted Ayame back, getting to stand besides her father, "And friends! Just hold on, Naruto-kun, I'll take your order! You have to tell me everything about today"!

"Hold it, Naruto, present them when Ayame gets here so you won't need to repeat yourself".

"So, who are they, Naruto-kun?", said Ayame when she got beside her father.

"Those are my team-mates! Sakura and Sasuke! We are Team 7 and our sensei is Hatake Kakashi!", told Naruto.

"Nice to meet you", said Sakura bowing her head.

Sasuke just grunted in acknowledgement. Inner Sakure squealed 'how cool!'. Ayame frowned.

"Now that's not very nice, young man!", scolded her, taking Sasuke and Sakura by surprise, "When you meet a girl for the first time you should say at least _something_ and not just grunt"!

Sakura was shocked. That was the first time she saw a girl not falling head over heels for Sasuke at his mere coolness! Obviously Sakura never paid attention to one of her class-mates back in the Academy... Even so she was even more surprised that not only was Ayame not impressed with Sasuke she was even _scolding_ him! Who scolded Sasuke?! Didn't she know who he was?!

"What? You think that just because you're an Uchiha I should just accept whatever crap you gave me?", asked Ayame to Sasuke who got even more surprised and he started wondering if she could read minds.

"It's all in your face, Sasuke", explained Naruto with a shrug of shoulders when his rival started looking at Ayame-nee-chan as if asking a silent question.

"Ah".

"Anyway", continued Ayame, "I won't just have you being ill-manered just becaue you are the last Uchiha in Konoha, here you're just another customer and no customer can just do whatever he wants here without receiving a piece of my mind".

"She means it, Sasuke, I've never seen anyone receiving any kind of special treatment for the better or the worse, not even the Hokage", said Naruto seriously.

"Of course not!", added Teuchi, "We have a very strict work ethic here, we are always fair in the service. Which of course doesn't means we can't be friends with our customers. It only means they are not going to get special treatment just because of that".

"So, what are your orders?", said Ayame after allowing them a few minutes to contemplate their awesome work ethic that always amazed the customers. The fact that usually after that they acquired very loyal customers had nothing to do with that.

"Well, I'm going to have a large serving of miso ramen with roasted pork fillet" !", said Naruto.

"I'll have just a small portion of salt ramen, please", said Sakura.

"And I'll have a normal size tuna one", told Sasuke.

"Coming right away"!

_Meanwhile..._

Haruno Kizashi was anxious to meet the Hokage, for he had being given an important mission by Hokage-sama himself (or that's what he kept telling himself), he had even skipped dinner the previous day to search for the sheet of paper he now had in his hands, even missing his daughter getting home and giving the good news she had officially become a genin, but he had eventually found the memorandum and was now standing in front of the secretary, who looked at him with a bored expression while she was filing paperwork of her own:

"Yes"?

"I'm Haruno Kizashi; Hokage-sama told me to give something to him as soon as I found it", told Kizashi showing the folder in his hand.

"Good, you may leave it in the desk and I'll deliver it to him", nodded the secretary, uninterested.

"I would rather deliver it personally", said Kizashi.

"Suit yourself, just let me see Hokage-sama's appointments for today", replied the bored woman, pulling an appointment book from under the desk and opening it in the page marked for today:

"Hmm... will it take long? Hokage-sama has a meeting with the Academy Teachers in half an hour".

"No, I don't think it will take too long".

"Just let me warn him", replied the secretary, ringing the intercom.

"_Yes?_", replied the grave tone of the Sandaime.

"Sir, a Haruno Kizashi is here telling he has to deliver something to you".

"_Oh, I've been expecting him, send him up_".

"Okay, then you may go but be quick, Hokage-sama said it was an important meeting about an issue that should be solved quickly".

"Yes, I won't take much of his time", nodded Haruno-san, making his way to the Hokage's office where he was invited to enter just as he was knocking on the door:

"Enter, Haruno-san".

"Excuse me", said Kizashi.

"Well, to be honest I had been expecting you yesterday, so why are only visiting me today"?

"I'm deeply sorry, sir, but I only found the file when it was already late night, I didn't even get a proper chance to welcome my daughter yesterday", bowed Kizashi.

"Ah, you mean Haruno Sakura, huh? I heard she had the highest scores in the written tests of this last class".

"Yes, she has always being a dedicated student", smiled Kizashi proudly before his smile dropped a little, "It's a pity she has spent more time studying than exercising though".

"Ah, yes, it is. However, I'm sure you didn't come here to talk about your daughter", affirmed the Sandaime, his expression becoming serious.

"Yes, sir", replied the publisher also turning serious and extending the folder containing the memorandum to Hokage-sama, "I'm sorry for taking so long, it was buried deeply in the archives of twelve years ago. Thankfully we always keep our files sealed in scrolls that are then sorted by year, too bad all the paperwork of the year is summoned when we unseal the files".

"Oh, paperwork, one of the vilest foes of men in the world", muttered Sarutobi while opening the folder and reading the sole file there. As he finished reading he spoke, this time a little louder "Indeed, this memorandum has one of my signatures but it doesn't have my chakra in it, so it is a fake".

Sarutobi Hiruzen always used a special pen that allowed him to put some of his chakra in whatever he was writing. It was just an anti-forgery measure Hiruzen used and it was paying off now.

"Really? I could swear it had your chakra in it, sir", frowned Kizashi.

Because he was a former genin candidate he could sense chakra a little, even if his senses weren't the sharpest ones nowadays, but even so he had been sure it was the Hokage's chakra in the signature.

"Of course you did, it has a small seal in it that maintains a simple genjutsu to make whoever looks at it without paying too much attention to ignore the seal and to sense the chakra as mine. Whoever made this had enough common sense to know people wouldn't pay close attention to an official looking memorandum just after the Kyuubi's attack, not to mention it was obviously someone very skilled in both genjutsu and fuuinjutsu", told Sarutobi who smiled slightly after that, "Thankfully, the skills needed narrows the number of possible suspects to only a few people. Thank you, Haruno-san, you just made a great service for Konoha, you will be rewarded for it. You may go now".

"Thank you, Sir", said an honoured and proud Kizashi, leaving the room.

_Back at Ichiraku Ramen_

01:30 pm

"Hey, it's Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke!", said a boisterous voice form the door. It was Inuzuka Kiba.

"Hey, Kiba!", greeted Naruto back.

"What, you actually became a ninja?", joked Kiba, looking at the hitaiate on Naruto's head walking towards them, his respective team-mates right behind him and his dog Akamaru on his head.

"I could ask you the same, Kiba!", replied Naruto grinning.

"Yeah, I did. It was a piece of cake", bragged the Inuzuka.

"H-h-hello, N-Naruto-kun", said the shy girl in Kiba's team. Her name was Hyuuga Hinata and she was a cute white-eyed girl that was always following Naruto. In fact, she stalked him so much she had become kind of part of the background as far Naruto was concerned. He would like to know her better yes, but because she was always hiding and never talked directly to him he didn't approach her if she wouldn't approach him. At least he never felt the same hostility as that of the other villager's from her so he didn't mind her.

"Hey, you finally talked to me!", said Naruto happily, "How are you doing Hinata-chan"?

''Hinata-chan'? 'You finally talked to me'? He wanted to talk with me? _Me_?', Hinata's brain overloaded with emotion and she fainted with a happy squeal. It took all the courage she had to say two words to him and she doubted she would have been able to do the same if she wasn't with her team-mates and he with his.

"Hey, Hinata? What's wrong with you?", asked a worried Naruto patting her head.

"Leave her be, Naruto, because she will wake up when she recovers", said the other team-mate, Aburame Shino, a mysterious guy that almost nobody knew his face.

"Hey, Shino!", greeted Naruto distracted, "Is that usual for her"?

"Not really", said Kiba sitting on the stall next to them, "but she will get better, just sit her on the chair next to you".

"Okay", nodded Naruto, doing as told.

"Now what are you guys doing here, Kiba-kun, Shino-kun?", said Sakura.

"We weren't really interested in this place", confessed Kiba, "It's just we passed in front and we saw not only Naruto who, according to Hinata, is pretty much here for every meal and she wanted for some reason to eat specifically at the restaurant across the street but then we saw those other two here and we decided to see how you were doing".

"Actually he just yelled your names and entered this place without asking us if we wanted to", said Shino.

"Whatever, Shino", replied Kiba, "Now, you two, I never thought you guys would hang with Naruto here even if he was in your team".

"Well, things happened and we accepted his invitation", told Sakura truthfully.

"Sure, whatever. Hey, did you guys pass the Genin Exam then?", continued Kiba.

"Yes, we did!", nodded Naruto with great pride.

"But it was hard", added Sakura and deflating Naruto, "our sensei gave us a test planned to make us fight amongst ourselves".

"How so?", asked Kiba.

And the genin proceeded to compare their respective tests. It seemed Kakashi wasn't lying when he said it wasn't the role of the jounin-senseis to teach jutsus as Team 8's jounin-sensei, Yuuhi Kurenai, said the same thing.

Right after, Hinata woke up again and Naruto greeted her but because he was sitting right next to her when she woke up, she fainted again. Kiba just gave the same suggestion to Naruto as before and they continued to talk, this time about their trainings today. Mid-way in the discussion, Hianta woke up again and Naruto greeted her once again but this time she didn't faint because she was readier for that so she joined the conversation. At some time in the middle of the discussion, Sasuke looked at the clock:

"Naruto, Sakura, I think it is time we left", called Sasuke staring at the clock.

"Why? What time is it?", said a Naruto who was was squinting his eyes in clear confusion.

"It is 02:30 pm and we still have some things to research yet", justified Sasuke.

"What are you guys researching?", said a curious Kiba.

"Internal businesses of our team", replied Sasuke before either Sakura or Naruto could say anything with such finality it gave no room for for argument from his team-mates, "so now excuse us as we're going to pay".

"Fine then. See you later!", shrugged Kiba not really caring.

After everyone saying their goodbyes, Team 7 went to the Uchiha Library again where they compared older maps with newer maps from both the very archive of the clan and the ones from the Academy. The result was finding out that Uzushio was located in nowadays Wave Country.

_In the Hokage's Office..._

10:00 pm

The Hokage's meeting with the Academy Teachers was finally finished. It took hours to end because not only did he have to chew on the instructors because they teach an important part of Konoha's history (accusation which the instructors from before the Kyuubi's attack defended from by saying that because the textbooks didn't mention anything about it they concluded they didn't need to teach it either), he also had to find a way to pass this knowledge to everyone who had lacked this piece of history.

But in the end he had reached some solutions he felt were good enough: first, every jounin who got a genin team in the last twelve years would have to correct any of his or her students that were still genins basic training and education; second, every chuunin and jounin that graduated from the academy during this time frame should fix this problem for themselves; and third, those who left the Academy after failing any of the test for genin would be invited to complete their ninja training if they so chose.

The reason for the first item was because those jounin still were responsible for the training of their respective genins they could solve this temselves. The second item was because considering chuunin and jounin were their respective ranks they had enouch responsibility to solve this problem themselves whenever they had free time for that; and the third reason was that because many of those students that decided to live as civilians had by now found out another career to follow and they could be not interested in abandoning it.

Regardless, now he had another order to give:

"Tenzo", summoned the Sandaime.

"Yes, Hokage-sama", answered the ANBU Commander Tiger, kneeing before his leader.

"I have a new mission for you", Sandaime cut to the chase, "You are to lead the investigation on this case about the Uzumaki. I trust you will be able to take care of it".

"Understood, sir", nodded Tenzo/Tiger.

"Go, I'll have you choose who to take on this mission. Also, here is a list of those I suspect that I thnk might be behind it, be they living or dead", said the Hokage giving his subordinate a scroll.

"Yes, sir"!

And he disappeared, leaving the Hokage alone in the office smoking his pipe...

* * *

12/27/2012: Finally I finished the Introduction Arc of the series! Next chapter we will begin an arc I've being anxious to write since I started planning parts of this story! I hope it will be as good as I wanted...

Anyway, I wanted to publish this chapter since the start of this week, but then came Christimas Eve and Christimas and I spent time with my family, then after it we ran out of electricity and it only came back after midnight but my connection didn't so I had no chocie but to wait until after morning to update my story.

As side note, I'm disappointed with this last end of the world. Honestly, I didn't see even one little explosion! No zombies, no alien invaders, no world-spliting earthquakes, no anything! I expected more, you know? Well, at least now I can try fulfilling my dreams at least until the next prophecy pops up.

P.S.: By the way, as far as I know there is no canon evidence that Whirpool was in modern Wave nor that it wasn't, so for the sake of this story I will just pretend it is.


	7. Ch 07: Yep, Another Wave Arc

_**Chapter VII**:_

_Yep, Another Wave Arc _

Finally, after long months of training and some (crappy) missions, Team 7 was finally getting a C-rank mission! And it was to Wave too!

The day next to Team 7's discover that Uzushio used to be where Wave nowadays was, Naruto demanded from Kakashi to take them there in one of their missions, at which Kakashi replied he would only take them anywhere out of Konoha if they got strong enough to take on a C-rank mission, which resulted in Naruto training with even more enthusiasm so they would be able to visit the Uzumaki's ancient home as soon as possible. As a consequence of his enthusiasm, the other two started doing the same with their trainings and their spars became much more intensive, culminating in, among other things, Naruto realizing his range in taijutsu wasn't near enough for a fight, so he tried to find out a way to extend it (which he did) and Sakura started finding her own style to fight, as for Sasuke didn't have many weaknesses to overcome so he just generally improved.

Realizing how much they were putting in their trainings now, Kakashi made good of his 'promise' from the first day of Team 7 and started putting a couple more traps in the obstacle course that they ran once per week in different training grounds, which improved their evasion quicker than he expected.

However, it didn't take much time and before he noticed they were probably already strong enough to take a C-rank but he wasn't so sure because it still hadn't passed enough time for your usual genin team to start taking harder missions so he decided to give them one last exercise before going out of the village: Tree Climbing. It was a very tough exercise that not all ninja mastered even if they could use it somewhat, it was an exercise that involved using chakra to walk in vertical and horizontal surfaces like the trunk of a tree. It needed accurate chakra control because too much chakra would push the ninja off from the tree and too little would make you slip and the more you climbed the harder it became to control the chakra. Yes, it was a very tough exercise that would be perfect as a test to see if his genins were truly ready for a C-rank.

Sakura mastered it in the first try. Naruto and Sasuke took two weeks to do the same. Your usual genin took at least one month to learn it enough for it to be actually usable in battle. Kakashi was impressed so he took them to the Mission Centre so they could take their first C-rank mission and thankfully there was one to Wave. The only problem was the client:

"What? That's the team that's going to protect me? They look super useless, specially the midget with a stupid face", that was the greeting they received from the drunk bridge builder Tazuna. Of course it didn't take long before Naruto wanted to kill the man they were supposed to protect. Kakashi wasn't amused.

Nevertheless they still accepted the mission because it was the only mission to Wave they had in Konoha. At least Naruto was leaving the village for the first time in his life and he was going was to the ancient home of one of his clans too. Even the client was a jerk at least the trip would be worth it.

By the way, I forget to tell two things to you, reader:

1st - Naruto had recently bought a new outfit: an orange sleeveless kimono shirt, orange pants with horizontal small slits in front of his knees (a small customization Naruto made), blue belt and blue ninja shoes. His shirt also had the symbol of the Uzumaki in the back and in the same size as the Uchiha's uchiwa in the back of Sasuke's shirt. His ninja tools pouch and his kunai holster were still in the same places from his old outfit. The shirt was sleeveless because this way he could remove the bones of his arms without worrying about ripping his clothes and he could even use those bone blades popping from the forearm trick he accidentally used when his Shikotsumyaku awakened back there in Chapter I (remember?) and he made slits in his pants so he could pull bones from his knee without ripping his pants. His shirt had lots of internal pockets to hide whatever he felt like hiding there.

2nd - Naruto had begun to study a little bit of human anatomy. First he tried to learn everything he could about bones as those were most likely going to become his main weapons but he soon learned that bones, among other things, interacted directly with muscles, which then he began studying to know how to best use his bones, but he discovered that muscles were intimately connected with blood vessels and from there he discovered that everything in the human body was somehow connected to everything else, which meant that if he wanted to know everything about his body he should as well decide to be a doctor! But he didn't want to be a doctor! He didn't have enough patience for that and the subjects would probably be very boring for him! So he decided to only learn the basic stuff like what was the utility of each system and how they interacted among themselves but let someone else (like Sakura) learn the more specific stuff like how each organ worked and all the names of everything of the organism.

Anyway this isn't important, what's important is what happens during the mission.

"Shut up, Old Man!", said Naruto pointing to Tazuna after he called him 'brat' one too many times, "Don't underestimate ninjas! I'm awesome! And I'm going to become a super elite ninja called Hokage one day"!

"Isn't Hokage the strongest ninja in the village? I don't think someone like you can do it", affirmed Tazuna.

"Shut up! I am Naruto, heir to the Uzumaki and Kaguya Clans"!

"You, an Uzumaki? Hah, you're not even a red-head!", mocked Tazuna, "The little girl there is more likely to be an Uzumaki than you! At least pink is a shade of red".

"No way!", scandalized Sakura, "I can't be a relative of that idiot! There's no way this could be true! I can't accept that"!

"Calm down, Sakura, he's not saying you are, he's just saying you look more like an Uzumaki than Naruto", appeased Kakashi-sensei.

"Oh, okay", Sakura calmed down.

"And Tazuna-san", called Kakashi, "if we follow that logic it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Naruto is a red-head then because white is the sum of all colours including red".

"If that's the case then you and me both would be red-heads as well then", replied the elder.

"No, only me because your hair is grey due to age, not naturally", replied Kakashi.

"Hmm, yeah you're right", agreed Tazuna.

As you can see they had a lot of time to waste during the travel.

However that little discussion was overheard by two people that shouldn't: Gouzu and Meizu, twin chuunins from Kiri known as the Demon Brothers who were trailing Tazuna.

"You heard that, Gouzu?", said Meizu to his older brother.

"Yes, Meizu. A Kaguya survived after all", confirmed Gouzu.

"And he also seems to be an Uzumaki as well", complemented Meizu, "Let's test him"!

"Not yet, let's watch them a little more and then we test him. If he proves to be an interesting opponent we will then warn Zabuza-sama", said Gouzu.

"All right, brother", obeyed Meizu following the lead of his brother to stalk them for a couple days.

During dinner that night, Kakashi pulled a notebook and a pencil from his pouch and started writing something on it.

"What are you doing, Kakashi-sensei?", asked Naruto after watching him for a while.

"Oh, you made me miss the calculations, Naruto!", scolded Kakashi, ripping the sheet he was using and putting it in his pouch.

"I'm sorry, Kakashi-sensei"!

"That's okay", sighed Kakashi, "I'll just have to restart it".

"But why are you calculating, sensei?", wondered Sakura.

"I'm just seeing how much I spent in this month, Sakura", eye-smiled Kakashi, "It is still a little early for that but this way I won't have to do everything later".

"Wait, you always do that before the end of the month?", asked Tazuna, finding it strange.

"Yes, I always do that in the end of each week so I can know how much I can spend in the next one".

"Oh, that seems prudent", nodded Tazuna, "but I still prefer to do this in the end of the month when I know how much I received".

"Each one to their own ways of saving money".

"I hate having to do that", commented Naruto, folding his arms.

"What, you also have to do that?", asked a surprised Tazuna, "Don't your parents take care of it"?

"I never knew my parents", told Naruto, dropping his eyes, "Old Man Hokage says they died protecting the village when I was a baby".

"... I'm sorry", answered Tazuna looking genuinely sorry now, "I didn't know".

"That's okay, I don't even know who they are, I only know at least one of them was an Uzumaki and the other a descendant of the Kaguya if not a Kaguya him or herself".

After that all five of them got silent, until Kakashi eye-smiled and ruffled Naruto's hair:

"Don't worry, I'm sure they loved you Naruto", cheered the sensei.

"Yeah, that's for sure!", grinned Naruto lighting the atmosphere and fixing his hair after Kakashi finished messing it.

After that they kept talking and eating a bit more until a yawn escaped Naruto's mouth:

"Hey, Kakashi-sensei, isn't there any short-cut to Wave?", said the boy as soon as he could speak normally again.

"Hmm, I don't know, why don't you check the map"?

"Good idea, sensei!", told Naruto, pulling a map from his pouch, "Hey Sasuke, Sakura-chan can you help me"?

"Why should we?", replied Sasuke, recovered from the shock of knowing Naruto didn't know who his parents were.

"Sasuke, Sakura, go help him", ordered Kakashi-sensei, "You know how distracted he is so he may miss something if he do it alone".

"Sensei!", whined Naruto making Kakashi laugh.

"Fine", grumbled Sasuke getting close to the boy with Sakura right behind.

They spent the next hours discussing among themselves what path would be better for them.

The Demon Brothers were still following Team 7 and Tazuna.

_Earlier that day, in Konoha_

Tenzo was at the ANBU Headquarters looking through the list of suspects Hokage-sama gave him. He understood why he was chosen for this mission; before he was an ANBU Captain, Tenzo had worked sometimes with the Konoha Military Police Force so he knew a bit about how they used to work and this mission would need some investigation. But first he needed to assemble his team so he focused on the list once more before burning it:

_Uchiha Clan_

_Orochimaru_

_Shimura Danzou_

"That's going to be hard", thought Tenzo getting anxious. He would be needing some very good ninjas in this team...

* * *

**Author's notes**:

12/31/2012: I'm sorry for such a short chapter. To be honest I wanted to advance the main plot more in this chapter but I realized that if I ended where I ended I could build more suspense (le me scratching the back of my neck sheepishly) but the advantage is that next chapter will be out very soon.

I know this chapter sounded like filler but trust me, it actually isn't.


	8. Ch 08: Ambush

_**Chapter VIII**:_

_Ambush_

In the end they concluded the road was indeed the better path given the circumstances (namely, having a civilian with them), but even so Wave was so close they would only need another day, maybe a day and a half, to get there.

During this day Tazuna wasn't impressed by the team. The pink-girl looked like a useless fangirl who cared more about her appearance and love than training, the Uzumaki was loud and childish, the brunette was stuck-up and spoiled and the sensei seemed too lazy to do any serious job, like teaching anything to his supposed students, no, really, he witnessed the kids asking to learn anyting and he refusing with a "Not feeling like it"; and what was worse, the masked man was stickking far too close to Tazuna for his taste!

The team was so useless he was certainly going to die even before leaving Fire Country! He sighed, before the journey began they seemed so much more professional but now he saw that it was just so the Hokage wouldn't chew on them. But he supposed it was karma, he did lie about the mission after all so naturally he would get useless ninjas. Too bad that now he couldn't just go back to the village and ask for another team now that he had already exposed himself, besides they were already in the middle of the travel. He just hoped that none of Gatou's men attacked them during the trip.

But of course he wouldn't be so lucky.

When they reached a lake in the path to the insular country two ninjas with a chain between them burst from the waters and began tying the bridge builder who knew for sure he would die there before saving his country from Gatou's hands. Damn, he shouldn't have lied about the rank of the mission!

Except he didn't die.

He didn't understand what happened, he just knew he survived somehow. What happened wasn't something that Tazuna could understand:

First, when the Demon Brothers jumped out of the water and attacked Tazuna, Kakashi immediately leapt to action and got a hold of the client before using Kawarimi, swapping them both with a tree trunk just before the chains actually immobilized them which was a smart move because the next instant the piece of wood was shredded (thankfully Kakashi had chosen wisely by sticking very close to Tazuna during the trip).

Then Sasuke threw a shuriken followed by a kunai on the chain, locking the brother's main weapon in a nearby tree. The brothers were so surprised they didn't react quickly enough to unlock the chain before Naruto jumped towards them, three bone claws extending from each hand and striking their respective metal gauntlets, piercing their wrists under the armour, disabling their hands (at least they dropped the chain after that).

Before the Brothers could properly realize what happened they were immobilized by a pair kunais touching their necks lightly, one in the hand of the sensei and the other in the hand of the girl:

"Stop, or we will cut your throats", said Kakashi just in case Team 7 hadn't been clear enough.

It was then that Gouzu understood what happened, followed soon by Meizu.

"Damn, they deceived us"!

"Yes", confirmed Kakashi, "I knew we were being followed since the beginning but I wasn't sure by who or why so just to be safe I later warned the rest of my team. When you attacked us my suspicions were confirmed".

"What?", exclaimed Tazuna, "When did you tell them that"?!

"During dinner", replied Kakashi simply.

Tazuna just gaped. How? At no moment did Tazuna realize they did that, did he tell that in some kind of secret code? Maybe during their banal conversation about finances? At least it seemed banal for him. Even the Demon Brothers weren't sure how the jounin-sensei managed to do that.

But no, it wasn't through any kind of secret codes hid in the discussion, the discussion itself had genuinely been banal but he was right about the timing.

What happened was that instead of making the calculation in his notebook Kakashi actually wrote a small note in it because he knew one of the genins was going to sooner or later ask what he was doing and when Naruto did that he faked making a mistake so he would have an excuse to rip the sheet of paper from it and put it in his pouch, inside which he quickly folded the piece of paper and hid it under his palm. Then, when he ruffled Naruto's hair, the sensei actually put the piece in the hair and the boy noticed it so he acted like he was fixing his hair so he could take the note without anyone noticing. The next step was to continue talking as if nothing had happened so everyone would 'forget' the thing with the hair. When Naruto asked if there was a short-cut to Wave he intended in using it as an excuse to pick the map so he could open the note over it to read it discreetly; the real reason he asked his team mates to help him with that was that they all read the note at the same time. In the note there were only three words that were enough for them to prepare for an ambush:

_We're being followed_

After that they started downplaying their abilities and training so those possibly hostile stalkers would underestimate them, which obviously worked when the Kiri ninja concluded they were useless and decided to kill their target without bothering with those weaklings.

And because they had been expecting an ambush, Team 7 reacted much quicker and efficiently than they would have if they had been taking completely by surprise. An unexpected bonus from actually keeping their guard up was that when the fight began the adrenaline in their organisms made them not hesitate.

Of course, none of it would have worked if Kakashi hadn't spent so much time training their team work. It was good to see all those hours of working together had paid off in the end.

And, obviously, none besides Team 7 would know how they did it.

"So, who hired you to kill Tazuna-san?", asked Kakashi coldly.

But they didn't answer.

"Tell me! Who hired you to kill Tazuna-san?", repeated Kakashi with strength now.

And they still didn't answer.

"Answer me! Otherwise we will cut your throats!", growled the jounin.

But he Demon Brothers only smiled behind their masks and used Kawarimi to swap themselves with water.

"Damn!", cursed the former ANBU Captain, he didn't expect them to be able to use any jutsu with one of their wrists bleeding but it seemed they had a greater pain threshold than most, "Protect Tazuna-san! They might attack again"!

And the four Konoha ninjas surrounded their client from all sides but no one attacked. They had retreated already.

After keeping the formation for a little longer, Team 7 dropped the formation but not the guard.

"They must have retreated", suggested Sakura.

"Possibly", agreed Kakashi-sensei, "But maybe not. Let's move now".

And they pressed their step. Only when the afternoon ended and ordered Naruto to make a perimeter with Kage Bunshin did Kakashi consider safe enough for them to stop and take their breath.

"Now, we need to speak, Tazuna-san", began Kakashi-sensei, very seriously.

Then Tazuna gave them the truth. That he was being targeted by Gatou of the Gatou Corporation because he, Tazuna, was threatening his monopoly over the sales of Wave, how his country was very poor so it couldn't have paid for the more expensive B or A-ranks and how the former land of the Uzumaki was in terrible conditions.

Now, normally the right decision from a ninja point of view would be to cancel the mission and return to Konoha so the mission could be properly labelled and a more experienced team could be deployed but Tazuna convinced them to continue the mission regardless, the fact that Naruto wanted to continue also helped in the decision.

However that hadn't been the last time they would see the Demon Brothers. Indeed, only in this mission they would meet at least once again and next time the chuunin would have reinforcements.

"So, why did you run with your tails between the legs like dogs?", interrogated the demon they worked for: Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Mist.

"We didn't run away, Zabuza-sama", affirmed Gouzu.

Zabuza raised one of his non-existent eyebrows and snarked:

"No? You failed the mission, you were incapacitated and you came back without killing only one of them, much less the target. If that's not running away than what it is"?

"Keeping the rarest prey to the best hunter, Zabuza-sama", answered Meizu.

"Oh? How so"?

"They had a Kaguya, sir", told Gouzu.

"Really?", replied Zabuza surprised and tiny bit eager, "How you know that"?

"He had the Shikotsumyaku, Zabuza-sama".

"Are you sure?", replied their leader, sounding a bit eager.

"Yes", nodded both brothers.

It didn't take long for Zabuza to start laughing madly, his bloodthirstiness clear to whoever heard him.

Oh, this could be fun!

* * *

**Author's notes**:

01/01/2013: I didn't expect to finish this chapter so soon but I guess it isn't all that strange considering this chapter was supposed to be a part fo the previous one.

As you can see, the Wave Arc is already going through a different path than canon and that's just the beggining! I still have some surprises in the planning.

And before I forget, happy new year!


	9. Ch 09: Zabuza's Vicious Test

_**Chapter IX**:_

_Zabuza's Vicious Test_

Tazuna really hoped he wouldn't have any more trouble during his way home but of course he wouldn't be so lucky. At least they reached the islands where Wave was located without finding any other hostile being but of course it wouldn't last.

After they gave their farewells to the ferryman that took them to one of the islands and walked for a bit, Team 7 suddenly tensed their bodies and took a more defensive formation around Tazuna but their movements were so subtle only another ninja would notice.

But Momochi Zabuza was a ninja and he had being watching Team 7 since they got out of of the boat.

You see, after he had finished laughing evilly in his lair Zabuza asked more informations from his subordinates and by what they observed the Kaguya was still a genin and also an Uzumaki, his male team mate was an Uchiha and the female one was probably civilian born. Unfortunately the Demon Brothers weren't smart enough to realize that the jounin in the Team was Kakashi of the Sharingan, also known as Copy Ninja Kakashi.

Nevertheless, when Zabuza was told that there was at least one more Shikotsumyaku wielder in the world he got excited. He still remembered the last Kaguya he fought and it had been one of the most fun battles he ever had. He just hoped that this little Kaguya could one day get at least close to that warrior's level but to not get his expectations too high and get disappointed later, Zabuza decided to test him first so he decided on a tactic he didn't usually use: sending waves and waves of cannon fodder to weaken the enemy.

Zabuza hated this kind of thing because bandits and the like most of the times barely knew how to hide or even fight making his job that much harder, however for his goals now they would be perfect for the job so he convinced Gatou to lend him twenty of his 'soldiers' to try and kill the bridge builder, at least that was what he said to his hirer when actually he knew very well those ruffians were going to be slaughtered but that was besides the point.

True to Zabuza's prediction, the thugs were doing such a lousy job in hiding that Kakashi felt like sighing even knowing that if he did it he could end up losing precious fractions of seconds for the battle. He couldn't help but think about it though.

Honestly, if those bandits surrounding them in the woods actually wanted to ambush them the least they could do was hide properly! The way they were doing it only Tazuna didn't notice and even he was feeling that something was wrong if his nervous body language was anything to go by.

"Don't worry, Tazuna-san, we're here", assured Kakashi getting a bit closer to their client.

Tazuna visibly relaxed then. Yes, that's right, he had four ninjas on his side, ninjas he now was sure they actually knew how to do their job (even though Sakura and Naruto shivered after their adrenaline levels returned to normal after the Demon Brothers attacked them and they realized how close to death they had been).

But Zabuza seemed to not agree with the feelings of Tazuna:

"_Suiton: Kirigakure no Jutsu_".

Then a thick mist suddenly covered everything around them prompting Team 7 to take a square formation around Tazuna so they could intercept any attack coming from any side; three claws immediately popped from each of Naruto's hands as he got into a battle stance; kunais appeared in the hands of Kakashi-sensei; a kunai ended up in Sasuke's right hand and some shurikens in his left; and a bunch of shurikens found themselves in Sakura's hands.

"What are you doing?", yelled Tazuna before twenty bandits jumped from the bushes closing a circle around them following with a charge towards the five targets.

"Attack!", ordered Kakashi-sensei and the genins acted without hesitation.

Five thugs carrying crude spears and swords advanced in the direction of Sakura but were hit by the many shurikens the girl threw, pushing them back while cutting some tendons in their faces and piercing the eyes of a couple unlucky thugs as she pulled even more shurikens from her pouch and threw them as well, cutting the neck of at least one of them.

Other five bandits with clubs and axes attacked Sasuke, who threw the shurikens in his left hand distracting them as he slashed the bellies of the two closest foes, gutting them, before throwing the kunai right in the middle of another enemy's face and drawing one kunai for each hand.

Kakashi was swift and economic in his moves, felling his share of mercenaries in the blink of an eye with barely a drop of blood falling in his uniform.

Naruto however had a harder time when the thugs got close to him with swords, knifes and a scythe. The first weapon to almost hit him was the scythe which was parried with the claws in one of the hands of Naruto who cut the handle and a couple of his opponent's fingers with the other claws before elbowing and pushing the foe away from him when the blade of a sword came down on his head forcing him to make a bone blade cut through his forearm skin to parry it in time and open the guard of the attacker so the boy could punch the bandit's gut with his claws, resulting in the death of the enemy, when another sword almost decapitated Naruto who was quicker, dodging the blow. Taking advantage of his opponent's miss, Naruto then slashed the man's chest and with a leg sweep knocked him down when the last enemy closed the remaining distance and tried stabbing the genin with two knifes while Naruto was crouched but he defended with another bone popping from the other forearm and retaliated cutting off both legs from the knife-wilder.

Zabuza was a little impressed when the twenty thugs ended on the floor, many dead. It seems the ninjas the bridge builder hired weren't so weak. Never mind, it was time for him to make his great entrance:

"_MWAHAHAHAH! THAT WAS AMUSING! IT SEEMS YOU, KONOHA NINJAS, AREN'T SO SOFT-HEARTED AS WE'RE LED TO BELIEVE_", said him while taking advantage of the mist to up the impact of his great entrance.

"Who are you?!", demanded the Kaguya/Uzumaki boy.

A giant sword then flew in their direction and stuck on a tree with the Demon of the Mist landing softly on the cable:

"Momochi Zabuza, at your service".

"Get behind me, you four!", ordered Kakashi moving his hand to his hitaiate, "He's a jounin nukenin"!

Team 7 didn't need anything else as they quickly jumped behind their sensei and formed a triangle around Tazuna.

"Oh, you know about me? I'm honoured", remarked Zabuza snidely, "Though I have to say I also know about you, Sharingan Kakashi".

"Sharingan?", repeated Sasuke not believing his ears. The Sharingan was the Kekkei Genkai of the Uchiha Clan and he was sure Kakashi wasn't an Uchiha so how would he have one?

"What's Sharingan?", asked Naruto.

"It's a Kekkei Genkai that manifests in the eyes of some ninjas", answered Sasuke, "It allows the user to predict and defend against any kind of jutsu but that's not the only thing the Sharingan can do".

"That's true, what's even scarier about the Sharingan is that it allows the user to copy any jutsu they see once", complemented Zabuza, "which is also the reason why you're called the Copy Ninja, right Kakashi"?

"Demon of the Mist Momochi Zabuza, was you the one hired to kill Tazuna?", replied Kakashi.

"Why asking a question to which you already know the answer"?

"So it indeed was you"?

"Yes".

"Kids, don't break formation, this is a guy you can't hope to match", told Kakashi pulling his hitaiate up to his forehead and revealing his left red eye.

"Oh, so you're going directly to the Sharingan"?

"Against someone of your calibre I can't take it easy", replied Kakashi.

"I'm flattered", retorted Zabuza sardonically but without making any movement to begin the battle.

Then both jounins got silent as they studied their respective adversary and the air became heavy, the killing intent in the atmosphere started squeezing the life out of the genins and Tazuna and Sasuke couldn't help but consider killing himself right there to stop feeling that pressure.

"Sasuke, don't worry, I'm not letting anyone kill any of my comrades even it costs my life", Kakashi noticed his student's unease and promised him that.

"Is that so?", mocked Zabuza, an obvious sneer in his voice, "Let's see that", when suddenly four Zabuzas attacked from the mists.

Team 7 then reacted and destroyed the water clones without breaking formation as ordered, however the clones were distraction enough for Zabuza to disappear with his sword from the tree and close the distance between him and Naruto as he kicked the boy out of the triangle the genins were forming around Tazuna.

Kakashi was quick to react and tried stabbing the nukenin with a kunai but Zabuza swapped with a log and counter-attacked with his sword that for centimetres missed Tazuna, however that Kakashi was a water clone, leaving the swordsman open for the original Kakashi's back stab. Realizing Kakashi's tactic, Zabuza took one of his hands off his sword's handle and grabbed Kakashi's hand that held the kunai and threw him on the water.

To not waste any moves, Zabuza then got behind Kakashi while the last was still in the water and with a cry of "_Suirou no Jutsu_" trapped the jounin in a spheric prison of water.

"Let's continue later, Sharingan Kakashi", decided Zabuza. He hadn't tested the Kaguya enough yet after all.

"Damn it!", was the thought passing through Kakashi-sensei's head at that moment.

"_Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu_", said Zabuza summoning even more clones and sending them to take care of the genins.

The clones then separated the Kaguya and attacked him while the other clones attacked Sakura, Sasuke and Tazuna.

The battle raged on with Naruto defending from the attacks the clones were delivering on him but having a hard time destroying them because this time they were actively trying to avoid his strikes, his team mates and the client trying to survive the relentless assault of the rest of Zabuza's clones and Kakashi futilely trying to think in a way to escape from his prison and save his students.

During the battle everything that Sasuke could worry about, however, was that if he didn't do something soon he would end up not only dying before he could fulfil his ambitions but, even more importantly, he was going to lose someone else and that, more than the killing intent match between Kakashi and Zabuza from earlier or the big battle against the thugs, scared him.

He couldn't accept it; just as he was starting to make bonds with someone else and even becoming something close to friends with Sakura, Kakashi and even Naruto, he was already losing them too! He hadn't noticed it before but now he realized that he didn't want to be alone again! Doesn't matter that this could be making him weaker, he just didn't want to see himself lonely again just as it happened all those years ago when his family was murdered by his older brother! He just couldn't accept that!

No, he _wouldn't_ accept that! Not yet, not when he was so close to forming bonds again! Right now he didn't care about his vengeance, he didn't care about his mission, he didn't care about his clan! If he died right now all his efforts would be for nothing! And more importantly, for what reason would he have dedicated himself so much if he were successful but realized he was ultimately alone? He would worry about his vengeance, about his mission, about his clan _after_ he survived this battle and only _after_ he was sure his team was alive and well! Because he didn't want to be alone any more! Because he wanted to look at his clan after it was avenged and rebuilt and say 'I did it, I saved my family'! Because he wanted him and his special people to live happily for a long time! So he had to survive and save his team!

It was then that Sasuke's eyes changed from black to red; Sharingan red...

* * *

**Author's notes**:

01/07/2013: ... Okay, about the killing of Gatou's men I'm going to be honest: I _really_ didn't want to go there but the way things happened in this story it was a logical development, though now it is inevitable for Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura to angst a bit because that was the first time they killed; however, because I (thankfully) don't have any experience with this kind of thing I'm not sure I'll be realistic about it. Keep in mind though that not only the kids didn't yet realize what they did, with Zabuza keeping their minds occupied they are only going to be able to reflect on this battle after it.

Now, about Sasuke awakening his Sharingan in this battle and him worrying about his team mates to the point he is willing to ignore his revenge for some time, I'm going to say that because he wasn't yet exposed to Orochimaru's Seal and Itachi's Tsukuyomi for the second time, his feelings of inferiority, weakness and jealousy didn't yet grow so strong that it overshadowed everything else so he still actually cared for his team mates. Another thing that greatly influenced my depiction of Sasuke's feelings was the fic "Never Alone" by Lucillia which gave a convincing theory (for me) on how the Uchiha awake the Sharingan (the Sharingan, not the Mangekyou Sharingan).


	10. Ch 10: Before the Battle on the Bridge

_**Chapter X**:_

_Before the Battle on the Bridge_

Sasuke wasn't sure about what happened; the way he saw it, in one moment he was being overwhelmed by the relentless assault from two Zabuzas and in the next their moves were much more predictable. He would have thought about how that was happening if he wasn't risking his life at that moment so he kept that question for after the battle when he would later realize it was the Sharingan.

When one of the clones raised the sword a bit too high to cleave through him, Sasuke stabbed the clone in the gut. Usually he wouldn't have noticed the opening in that moment but now that his vision was sharper he did and as as result the water clone had been dispelled.

Not to waste any chance in the battlefield, Sasuke stepped behind the other water clone and tried stabbing it but the clone evaded turning around the boy's attack and swung the sword down to try to decapitate him but Sakura noticed the clone turning it's back to her and she threw the kunai on it, destroying the last clone that had been attacking them.

Naruto, on the other hand, was still having a hard time. He had been isolated from his team because of the three clones attacking him. Even with the training he received, even with his claws and the bone blades on his forearms out he still was having a hard time to parry all the attacks around him and the worst was that they had such fine control of their blades that he was unable to use the length of the swords to make the clones kill each other so when Sasuke appeared over him kicking one of the clones in the head while holding a kunai he used to parry one sword strike Naruto hadn't noticed, Naruto became _very_ glad:

"Thanks, Sasuke!", told the Jinchuuriki while he clawed the clone behind him.

"You are welcome", replied Sasuke falling on the floor on his feet.

The last clone then jumped back, getting away from the genin.

"Oh, I'm impressed, you're pretty good... for brats", told the original Zabuza who was still holding Kakashi-sensei in a bubble, "But for how long can you keep going? _Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu!_"

More four clones rose from the water on the floor right in front of him. Sasuke _saw_ it.

"We need to take Kakashi out of there and soon", affirmed Sasuke urgently.

"I know but first we need to destroy those clones", replied Naruto, "hmm... I'm not sure it will work but it might."

"Wait, _you_ got a plan?"

"Do _you_ have one?"

"Ah, touché."

"Just follow my lead, bastard", told Naruto an impish grin on his face.

"You better have a good plan then, moron", smirked Sasuke.

Naruto sheathed his bones and breathed deeply before making a specific seal with his hands:

"_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!_"

And Sasuke also _saw_ it. And was impressed by the sheer amount of chakra Naruto had used, specially when tens of shadow clones appeared.

"Let's go!", yelled Naruto charging towards the five Zabuzas, his clones right behind.

Usually Sasuke wouldn't have completely seen what Naruto was doing but due to this battle he _saw_ when one of the Narutos used Henge to change into a Fuuma Shuriken and he realized that the version of Henge that Naruto used _wasn't_ the version taught at the Academy and rather a much more complete one. But even so he was sure this wouldn't be enough against five Zabuzas, then he saw another Naruto throw to him the transformed Naruto finally making him understand the plan. Then he saw a couple of Narutos positioning themselves amidst the Zabuzas and those Narutos burst into bone spikes effectively becoming spike bombs destroying the water clones and giving Sasuke a clean shot that he took without hesitation.

The result was just as planned: first, Zabuza caught Sasuke's Fuuma Shuriken without realizing Sasuke used _Kage Shuriken no Jutsu_ meaning there was another under it which Zabuza jumped over but the last wasn't really a shuriken and rather a Naruto transformed into one who threw a kunai at Zabuza's head forcing him to take his hand of the bubble Kakashi had been unless he wanted to take a head-shot from a genin ultimately realising Kakashi from the water prison.

What followed was an amazing battle between the jounins of the likes Sasuke had only heard about and as a bonus he _saw_ at least two new jutsus.

In the end, Zabuza had been defeated and was about to be killed by Kakashi when a boy did it instead with two senbons and claimed to be a Hunter-Nin.

Sasuke had heard about them before but he had never seen one of them. Naruto, on the other hand, hadn't even heard about them so after Kakashi quickly explaining that they were a special branch of the ANBU responsible for the recover and cleansing of the bodies of killed nukenin, the masked boy disappeared. Kakashi then hid his Sharingan eye again and gave a step forward:

"Well, now we should..." and fell on the floor due to chakra exhaustion.

The mist started clearing and as the high of the battle started diminishing the three genin plus one civilian started noticing the moans and the smell of death around them and they realized in a rational level that the battle was over even if subconsciously they were still somewhat in a shock.

Sakura, however, because of her 'split' personality was able to still think in an almost logical manner and remember one of the classes they had in the Academy in which the teacher told the standard procedure a ninja should follow after a big battle but because the standard procedure would be something she, as a civilian-born girl, wouldn't be able to do if she recovered all her mental faculties so she turned to her team mates and said:

"Guys, before we continue we should clean the field."

Both Naruto and Sasuke understood what she meant and nodded so she who was the best of them at Genjutsu neared Tazuna and put him to sleep so he wouldn't need to see what they were going to do and the three proceeded to kill all of the thugs that were still alive but fallen so Sasuke, who was the best of them in that jutsu, could open a big grave with a Doton and Naruto could use his shadows clones to quickly throw the corpses in it so Sasuke could dig them before the mist completely cleared and their adrenaline levels lowered enough to have them completely grasp what they had done. All that was done in a semi-conscious and almost mechanical manner that the genin were trying to extend as much as they could in order to follow protocol.

After that they woke up Tazuna telling him he fainted after he understood the battle had finished and the four of them continued their escort carrying Kakashi all the way. In no moment did Tazuna feel like questioning their version of why he went out nor to ask what happened with Gatou's men that were now nowhere to be seen or what the much of blood was doing on the floor.

When the sensei came back to his senses it was to see an unfamiliar ceiling and a beautiful woman nursing him.

"I feel like I should say something cheesy like 'Did I die and go to heaven? Because you're certainly an angel' but right now I'm suffering from a severe case of chakra exhaustion and I'm tired so could you simply tell me who are you and where am I?", greeted Kakashi.

"Wasn't it harder on you to say all that than simply say the cheesy lines?", smiled the woman greeting back.

"Of course. But as I said I'm not particularly in any condition to risk being slapped by someone, even a civilian", admitted Kakashi, "besides, I thought it would be too cliché."

"Maybe it would be", conceded her, "As for your questions, I'm Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, and you are in our house."

"Where are my students?"

"They went to town but they should be getting back right by", the sound of a door opening, "now. Wait here, I'm going to call them".

"You do that, I have something important to tell them", nodded Kakashi-sensei.

When the three genin entered the room Kakashi immediately noticed there was something wrong with them, like they were in shock and trying their utter most to hide it. It didn't take much of him to suspect the reason for it.

"Tazuna, Tsunami, could you please leave alone with them? I need to speak with them about ninja matters. Tomorrow I'll speak what I wanted", told Kakashi in his best ANBU Commander voice so no one would question him and as expected the two civilians left Team 7 alone, "Oh, and lock the door and don't eavesdrop, this really isn't something you would want to hear."

After Tazuna and Tsunami obeyed him, Kakashi turned to his team with a comprehensive glow in his eye and said:

"Tell me, did you follow the standard procedure?"

That night none of the ninja were very talkative because they were still coming to terms with what had happened; the genin with their first kills and Kakashi with how his team was forced to see that side of the ninja life so soon - but as he said to his team in the end of their talk, 'the job of a ninja isn't a glamorous one but someone has to do it and because you were trained for it it's better if it is you so those who aren't don't need to face the same'.

In fact, even the three civilians living in the house (Tazuna, Tsunami and Tsunami's son Inari) noticed the other three kids weren't ready to talk to yet.

Fortunately the next day they were much better (even if they were still visibly upset and with the faces of people who hadn't slept very well) and they presented themselves properly.

Kakashi then called a general meeting of those in the house to share his theory that Zabuza wasn't actually dead because that Hunter-Nin didn't dispose of the body right there in that moment and because he used senbon, a weapon that's almost non-lethal, to 'finish' Zabuza off.

The reactions of his students weren't as he half-expected, apparently they had not yet completely overcome the last battle. He felt like sighing but it would be useless so he continued giving them the news.

"But don't waste much time thinking about it for now, Zabuza is going to need at least one week before he could recover completely from that fake state of death."

"And what are we going to do until then, Kakashi-sensei?", asked Sakura.

"Training, of course", eye-smiled Kakashi. This seemed to uplift their moods a little at least.

"Why bother?", said Inari who was also sitting at the table, "You're going to die anyway."

Oh great, just what Kakashi needed, a depressive kid telling his team they were going to die anyway. He felt like punching the kid in the face for that but he knew it wouldn't help anyone if he did it.

"Inari, don't say such things to the ninjas who saved your grandpa!", scolded Tsunami.

"But they are really going to die if they face Gatou", insisted Inari, "He's too strong!"

"Even so, it's our job to finish our missions", said Naruto uncharacteristically low-spiritedly.

"And how are you going to do it?", shrugged Inari leaving the table, "You guys are looking already dead anyway. We don't need stupid zombies in this town".

"What?", said Naruto, raising his voice a little. Oh, that pulled some reaction from them.

"Are your ears rotten or something? Or is your brain half-eaten? I'm telling you we don't need _stupid ZOMBIES_ in this town", continued Inari. That seemed to pull a reaction from the rest of Team 7 and both Sakura and Sasuke started getting angry as well.

"How _DARE YOU_!", snapped Naruto rising from his chair. Kakashi never considered this method to counsel his students with, "I'm not a zombie! I'm very much alive thank you very much!"

"It doesn't seems like that to me", replied Inari also getting angry, "the way you guys were pale and silent yesterday, you were only lacking falling in pieces to be exactly like a zombie! All three of you!"

Now both Sasuke and Sakura also raised form their chairs and glared at Inari as if ready to jump on his neck and strangle him.

"Listen here, kid!", yelled Naruto pointing to Inari, a determined expression on his face, "One day I'm going to be a famous superhero and an awesome ninja called Hokage! And I'm going to show you how 'dead' I am!"

Kakashi couldn't help but chuckle at that. It seemed Inari's words were having an effect on the three genin. He usually wouldn't try to use anger to help his students because this couldn't be healthy in the long run but in the short run it seemed to be working like a charm.

"'Hero'? Are some kind of moron? The only thing heroes get in the end is death!", yelled Inari back turning towards the stairs and going up. Okay, that wasn't nice of the kid, thought Kakashi.

"Inari, where are you going?", asked Tazuna.

"I'm going to watch the ocean from my room. I don't have anything to say to stupid zombies that think they can be heroes".

"Hey, come back here you brat! I'm not finished with you yet!", screamed Naruto raising his fist but he was ignored, "Damn that brat! Kakashi-sensei, you said we're going to train?"

Noticing he had the attention of everyone else in the room now he eye-smiled and replied:

"Yes Naruto, I did".

It turned out the training Kakashi had in mind was more chakra control exercises because according to him there wasn't any technique he could teach them to the point it would be useful in battle in less than a week but chakra control was something that could always get better and any improvement could be the difference between life and death for a ninja so he decided to teach them water walking which had the same idea as tree walking but needed much more control. And he instructed Sasuke to not use the Sharingan for that training because he didn't want the boy too rely too much on it, besides chakra control wasn't really a kind of jutsu and it was something that the ninja had to teach his own body to have so even if he copied the technique with the Sharingan he wouldn't actually _learn_ it so Sasuke obeyed even if he thought it would be much easier.

This time Sakura didn't master it in the first try. Even so she was once again the first to do it even if it took her two days. An unexpected but not unwelcome consequence of that was they improved their swimming skills while an unexpected but unwelcome was that the three of them ended with a cold at some point in the week, fortunately at the end of five days all Team 7 was in a good enough health to fight.

Two days before what Wave would later call the Battle of the Great Bridge of Wave, however happened an interesting event that made Naruto get that much more determined to open his path in the world. It began with an innocent question from Sakura after dinner that night. She had noticed that Inari kept glancing at a framed picture on the wall opposite to his seat and when she checked said photo closer she noticed that it had a ripped corner as if someone had decided to rip a person from the picture and when she asked about it, Team 7 was informed that the man that wasn't there was of Tsunami's husband and a man that Tazuna said was once considered a hero by the people of Wave. By that point Inari left the room and Tsunami went after him to console her son but not before scolding her father for talking about such a sensitive issue in front of Inari.

Tazuna then proceeded to tell the story of how a humble fisherman became a hero for the people of Wave because he used to say that a man should protect what's precious to him with his own both arms even at the cost of his own life. The name of this fisherman was Kaiza.

Kaiza had proved himself true to his words as he saved Wave even when everyone else felt like it was useless to try. Then came Gatou who in order to destroy the morale of the country, chopped Kaiza's arms off when he tried protecting the country and then executed him publicly.

Because Naruto understood that Inari didn't believe in heroes, he decided to prove that heroes actually existed and this was a decision that would be really hard to make Naruto go back on so he went to train soon after.

That was, however, not the last time Inari's beliefs clashed with Naruto's. The next night, after Naruto and Sasuke had both finally mastered the water walking exercise Inari would finally confront Naruto on their different views of life.

After dinner ended Inari yelled in tears why they kept insisting in trying to defy Gatou when he kept saying it was useless because Gatou was just too damn strong and they wouldn't be able to defeat Gatou's men.

"Shut up, brat", was the answer Naruto gave, "you keep just going on and on about how strong this Gatou is and how what we are doing is worthless. Honestly, it makes me sick. You never even stop to think that the only reason he seems invincible is because you keep telling yourself that."

"Shut up! You don't know anything about this country! I bet you never even had a hard life and that's why you keep smiling like that!"

That stung Naruto like hell. Sakura glared at Inari, Sasuke seemed a little offended and Kakashi felt like facepalming.

"And you're just going to keep crying like that, are you?", replied Naruto,

And Naruto left the room, forcing Inari to face the angry scowls of his team mates. Later that night Kakashi would meet Inari looking at the ocean and tell him Naruto's and even a bit of Sasuke's life story making Inari rethink his opinions of Team 7.

The next day, because Naruto had spent the entire day before training water walking he ended up exhausting himself more than he ever had so Kakashi-sensei instructed Tsunami to tell Naruto not to move too much. Of course, Kakashi ignored Naruto's healing factor from the Kyuubi but that was understandable because he didn't actually _know_ about it.

It was good he did that though because that was the day of the Battle of the Bridge even if they didn't know about that and as expected it came a time in the middle of the battle that they would need Naruto's help but I'm getting ahead of myself now so let's return a bit.

When Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura reached the bridge there wasn't anything suggesting they would soon be fighting for their lives against Zabuza, his protégé Haku and the Demon Brothers. Well, nothing besides the unconscious workers and the destroyed machines and tools on the floor.

Obviously, as you can notice, Zabuza's team didn't actually try to be subtle so when the mist thickened around Team 7 and Tazuna weren't actually all that surprised when he appeared and only slightly more surprised when they noticed the masked boy from before besides him and only a little bit more when they noticed the Demon Brothers there.

"Sorry for the delay, Kakashi", began Zabuza.

"Hello there, Zabuza", replied Kakashi, his team taking a defensive formation around Tazuna. Sasuke was already activating his Sharingan.

"If I'm not wrong you've already met my subordinates, the Demon Brothers, right?", asked Zabuza rhetorically, "Well they certainly said you did and they've been itching for a rematch."

As if to prove his leader's declaration the two growled. Their injured wrists with extra armour on.

"Yes we did. And it seemed my supposition was completely right after all", said Kakashi in relation to the masked boy Haku.

"Huh? Where is that white-haired Kaguya you had with you?", noticed Zabuza, "I wanted to play with him a little".

"Now it wouldn't be smart to tell you that, right?", eye-smiled Kakashi.

"Of course, so stupid of me".

"Anyway, why are you so interested in him? Supposing you can tell of course".

"Oh, it's nothing big. I'm not particularly interested _in_ him, I'm only interested in fighting another Kaguya, specially a white-haired one".

"Kakashi-sensei, why is Naruto having white hair important?", asked Sakura, her curiosity winning against her prudence.

"That's because the Kaguya rarely had it", answered Kakashi, "and when they did it was common for them to have the Shikotsumyaku".

"Yes. Despite not having any definitive proof that both traits are somehow related most, if not all, of the Kaguya who had the Shikotsumyaku were white-haired."

"No definitive proof?", asked Sakura.

"The Shikotsumyaku was very rare even among the clan members and considering they were nomads that never stayed in the same place for too long it was hard to even know about them. So there is no way to test theories about them", explained Kakashi-sensei, "Ignoring all that though, by how you speak it seems you already met a Shikotsumyaku user before. Is that true?"

"Yes. Do you know that the last time the Kaguya were seem was when they attacked the Mist?", at Kakashi's confirmation, Zabuza continued, "Well, I was there in the front lines".

That surprised the genins in Team 7 and Tazuna. Zabuza continued his tale:

"And after killing many Kaguya I met this kid. White-haired and with the Shikotsumyaku. Don't remember his name now, but he was strong, really strong, probably the strongest of them. And we battled, a lot. It was most fun battle I had in a _long_ time. In the end the Kaguya were defeated and all of them died. All of them except this kid who used his abilities to protect himself from all attacks we made until we decided to just go home. It wasn't like he could pose any threat to us any more, with no clan to fight beside him he couldn't anything else than defend and all defences sooner or later fall. I've never seen the boy again. Maybe he's dead, maybe not, but it is unlikely that I'll ever meet him again even if he's alive".

"So, you're basically saying that you're using Naruto to remember this other Kaguya you fought?", concluded Kakashi.

"Not exactly, I'm just curious to see if he could give me so much fun as the other one. But whatever we have a contract to fulfil and a payment to receive so excuse-me but I'm going to take the life of that old man."

And now that the obligatory pre-battle banter was done, all the fighters got in their battle stances...

* * *

**Author's notes**:

03/03/2013: Sorry for taking so long it's just that I didn't want to make Naruto use precisely the same plan as in the Anime so I was stuck there for a very long time but in the end I just couldn't make anything much better because I felt like Naruto's was simply so brilliant... Sorry.

Anyway, Wave's Arc is about to end and next chapter is going to have a scene I've wanted to do since a long time ago, I just hope it will be as exciting as I hoped.


	11. Ch 11: Battle on the Bridge

_**Chapter XI**:_

_The Battle on the Bridge_

Meizu and Gouzu where the first to act and they began by creating five water clones each and sending them to attack the Konoha ninjas while Kakashi revealed his Sharingan.

Sasuke created seven water clones to counter-attack the Demon Brothers; clone clashed with clone resulting in mutual 'kills' but not all the enemy clones would have been defeated so Sakura and Kakashi helped, each killing some of the Brother's clones and finally the first wave of attacks was repelled.

Before he could completely recover his balance after the attack of the clones however, Kakashi saw Zabuza attacking him in exactly the next moment so he was forced to so-so parry the sword's strike with his kunai opening Zabuza's guard in exchange of a gash on his shoulder, punching the enemy jounin in the gut right after and pushing him a few metres back allowing him to draw another kunai and charge Zabuza, increasing the distance between Tazuna and Zabuza.

Haku also hadn't wasted time to let Sasuke breath and attacked at the same time as Zabuza but because of his Sharingan with two comma-like marks in each eye, Sasuke defended Haku's attack right on time and kicked the masked boy, pushing him back and opening his guard which he exploited by throwing a kunai from his holster but Haku defended with the senbon in his hand so Sasuke pulled another kunai from his holster and advanced trying to stab Haku, who stopped the strike by grabbing Sasuke's stretched arm and retaliated with the senbon right in the middle of Sasuke's eye who only by a hair's length managed to turn his head and receive a scratch on the cheek instead. Those things were unexpectedly sharp! Even so Sasuke, who had a free hand while his opponent did not, so, reinforcing his fist with chakra, he punched Haku in the face.

The strength of Sasuke's punch was so great, however, that Haku was sent flying back, his mask breaking to reveal a... pretty girl's face?

"A girl?", said Sasuke. The masked 'boy' he was fighting was a girl? And such a beautiful one as well? It's understandable that he was shocked for a moment but Haku took advantage of it and answered with a jutsu:

"_Sensatsu Suishou_!", then a thousand needles of water surrounded Sasuke, rudely forcing him to pay attention in the battle so he chakra-reinforced his legs and jumped away from the middle of the circle of needles escaping the attack by only a bit.

Still, using one-handed seals? Sasuke had never seen something like that! If he wasn't in the risk of dying he would probably start crushing on the older girl...

"And I'm not a girl."

Wait, what?

Haku then calmly smiled and appeared in front of Sasuke, cutting his line of thought before it even ended, the revelation shocking him again and creating another opening in his guard which was exploited by an even stronger punch from the enemy.

But Sasuke wasn't the only one having difficulties in their fights: Sakura was having a really tough time fighting two chuunins at the same time she protected Tazuna.

And only to make matters worse the Demon Brothers this time weren't linked by a chain, giving them more freedom of movement which made it that much harder to hit them.

She saw herself forced to think on strategies in the middle of the fight which she wasn't managing so to get a little time to think she threw two kunai with explosive tags attached on the two brothers; she didn't particularly hope the weapons to hit them but the explosions would certainly disorient them at least a little, then she used a couple smoke bombs to create a smoke screen to hide her while she calculated her moves for a moment. Then she charged from inside the screen.

The Demon Brothers could only think that she either had a death wish or she was suicidally stupid, either way they decided to give her what she was asking for by throwing many shurikens on her - more shurikens than any genin would be able to avoid..

Except she jumped. Really, really high and even flipped over them, then she turned back and gave them a smug smile. Both brothers felt a vein throb in annoyance so they jumped in her direction again and aimed their claws on her, but she evaded again and they ended up with the tips of the claws in the floor while she still smiled, challenging them.

"Damn brat", Meizu, the more hot-headed one, growled.

Kakashi was too busy taking on Zabuza to help his students and this was making him nervous, he was supposed to protect them, damn it! But Zabuza wasn't giving him time and worst of all, the Demon of the Mist was fighting with his eyes closed so Kakashi of the Sharingan couldn't use the powers of his eye to confuse him! And that damn mist was so thick he could barely see his opponent!

Fortunately for Sasuke and Sakura, the mist from Zabuza's jutsu wasn't as thick where they were fighting so they didn't to worry as much about visibility, unfortunately this didn't make things much easier for them. Sasuke was rolling on the floor to escape Haku's attacks that were happening in such a quick succession he didn't have time to stand and counter-attack while Sakura was still occupied making a fool out of the Brothers to the point even Gouzu (who was the calmer one) was getting annoyed.

It was only when Sasuke noticed Haku slipping on the floor for a split second that he was able to stand and get away from his opponent enough to regain his footing as Haku also recovered his and charged towards Sasuke, but the Uchiha boy side-stepped and used the _Goukakyuu no Jutsu_ on Haku who was forced to jump back to escape the fireball but he wasn't as fast as he wanted and a part of his sash was lit on fire so he used a quick water jutsu to douse the flames.

"You're really good", complimented Haku, turning his eyes to Sasuke while smiling serenely, "I guess I'll have to take you seriously now. I'm sorry, but you're not going to keep up with me now. _Hyouton: Makyou Hyoushou_!"

Several ice mirrors surrounded Sasuke next and Haku entered one of them making his reflection appear in every one of those mirrors, Sasuke could only stare at that for he didn't know where to attack and the worst of all, Sasuke also couldn't copy this technique because:

"_Kekkei Genkai_? You also have a _Kekkei Genkai_?", said him surprised.

"Yes, but mine is a more typical one than your Sharingan. My _Hyouton_ (Ice Release) is the combination of both Water and Wind chakras and not one that directly affects my own body, like yours or that of your Kaguya friend. Which means mine is _very_ flexible."

Next thing Sasuke knew was PAIN as hundreds of senbons scratched all his body and he didn't even know from where each needle came from.

On other point of the bridge, the Demon Brothers were getting really pissed because that genin was _still_ evading each and every attack they delivered, which by all accounts shouldn't be possible. Indeed, it was so unbelievable that Gouzu, the calmer one, saw himself reflecting a bit after missing the genin one too many times.

Not even jounins should be able to avoid so many attacks from two chuunins with as great of a teamwork as he had with his brother and some of the dodges the girl made were so incredible it seemed impossible for a human to make it but she was doing it. How?

It was then that he saw the girl didn't have a shadow! Turning to the point where the smoke screen had been he saw that not only had the smoke already dissipated but that their mark wasn't there!

Mentally re-checking what happened during the whole battle he realized that Sakura hadn't charged from inside all that smoke, a _Bunshin_ had!

"Meizu, stop, that's not the girl! That's a _Bunshin_! She fooled us!", he screamed starting to run in the direction of the entrance of the bridge. If the girl had sent a _bunshin_ to distract them that meant that she was either running away and abandoning the mission or she was trying to get the civilian to a safe place.

When Meizu heard that he looked in the direction of his brother and came to the same conclusion as him so he joined Gouzu in running after them.

But by the time Gouzu understood Sakura's plan, the girl had already hid under some broken machines on the bridge.

She was really glad her gambit had paid off as well as it did, in fact it had paid of even better than expected even it was still far from ideal.

Sakura had been sure that because she was only a genin in her first C-Rank, her enemies didn't really have any idea of her skills and she counted on them getting over-confident so they wouldn't stop to consider if she was smart enough to pose a challenge to them.

Her main objective had been to open the path for Tazuna to escape the battlefield so she would be able to focus completely on the battle and the method was quite simple actually: interrupt their lines of sight so they wouldn't be able to see her creating and sending a single clone to work as a distraction and send Tazuna back home.

Because the Demon Brothers had absolutely no knowledge of her skill set they wouldn't know she simply sucked in Taijutsu but had great potential in Genjutsu and therefore they wouldn't consider, at least in a first moment, that the girl with superhuman dodging skills was actually an illusion and to guarantee they wouldn't see her real self she made her clone taunt them whenever and however she could so they would lose their patience and focus on the clone.

When she saw the Brothers turning their backs to her clone and advancing towards the entrance of the bridge, Sakura got out of her hideout and ran after them. It seems they had already got that she had sent Tazuna back to his house so she decided it was time for her to attack for real but first she had to reach them, thankfully she had a great chakra control so she was able to propel herself with chakra with much more efficiency than Gouzu and Meizu and soon she had gotten close enough she had a good chance of hitting them with thrown weapons and she did so, breaking their concentration and stopping their advance by making them fall on the floor.

They turned back to her and with angry snarls they threw shurikens on her in case it was another clone but when they saw her blocking the projectiles with her kunai, confirming it was the real her, they charged at her with all their speed, making her unable to clearly follow all their moves as she was forced to jump back towards the centre of the bridge where Haku was attacking Sasuke who was barely following Haku's moves even with the Sharingan.

While Team 7 minus Naruto was battling Team Zabuza, Tazuna was running like he never ran before in the hopes of reaching his house had instructed him inside that smokescreen. If he reached his house he could wake Naruto up and send him to help his team! Then maybe the ninjas Tazuna hired and befriended wouldn't die!

But when he was getting close to his home Tazuna started seeing many things cut in the way and as he went home he noticed the number of cut things increased and the path of destruction seemed to be going straight to his home and that realization froze his heart as he pushed on, always going faster and faster, all in the hope that when he got home he wouldn't see his daughter and grandson dead or worse though at each step he gave that chance lowered and lowered.

So desperate he was, Tazuna almost crashed on Naruto who was running through the same path with a determined expression on his face that soon turned into one of surprise when the boy noticed the civilian running into him:

"Watch out!", screamed Naruto as he jumped over the old man who slipped and crashed on a nearby tree.

Tazuna was too worried to get angry at almost crashing on the little ninja.

Naruto looked in the worried and desperate face of the bridge-builder and before the older man even said anything, Naruto already helped him stand and with a comforting smile said:

"Don't worry, Tsunami-nee-chan and Inari are safe, I've already taken care of the thugs that tried attacking your home, so recover your breath a bit and go see them."

With that Naruto shot to the bridge even faster than before, his face even more determined. It seems those nukenins were already attacking the bridge which meant his team needed him!

Back at the bridge, Sakura wasn't noticing it but the Demon Brothers were slowly pushing her into Haku's jutsu; they wanted to trap her so she wouldn't trouble them further and as they'd never seen anyone escaping Haku's mirrors before they believed that would kill her.

Of course, they would love to kill her themselves but they had a job to do and they were professionals, meaning their personal feelings were irrelevant in comparison to completing the mission so they continued pushing her until she was cornered against one of the mirrors.

Haku noticed the girl just outside his jutsu and pulled her into the dome of ice and threw her on her team mate as he explained himself:

"I'm sorry but we have a job to do and it seems you have made things hard enough for us."

The Demon Brothers then ran back to the entrance intending in hunting down the bridge-builder and kill him at the same time Sasuke covered Sakura up when he noticed Haku attacking them.

Kakashi and Zabuza were still fighting fiercely without any definitive winner.

"Sakura, are you okay? Can you still fight?", Sasuke managed to ask the girl he was holding under him through the pain he was feeling from the scratches.

"Sasuke-kun!", answered Sakura with hearts on her eyes, "Yes, I'm okay! I can fight!"

"Good", nodded Sasuke, lifting himself up and having Sakura fall on the floor and not even bothering to offer a hand to help her stand. The jerk.

"Ouch, careful, Sasuke-kun!", whined Sakura standing and rubbing her butt as her inner self screamed 'Sasuke-kun, you JERK!'

"No time, he's attacking again!", warned Sasuke as he shoved the girl out of the barrage with himself barely evading as well.

Sakura almost complained again but she agreed that maybe now was not the time to worry too much about politeness so instead she said:

"I've got your back Sasuke-kun!", as she positioned herself back-to-back with her crush, glaring at Haku with an ugly scowl.

It is worth noting here that while Sasuke had heard Haku claiming to not being a girl, Sakura didn't, so to her, Haku was still a very beautiful girl who also happened to be a ninja. And as much a she hated to admit it, she thought Haku even more beautiful than her so she was envious of Haku which was a also a reason for her to antagonize the Mist-nin.

Haku was, of course, not caring about what the pink-haired girl thought about him that didn't directly involve the battle.

"That's a good idea", said Haku appearing in all the mirrors at the same time, smiling, "Too bad it won't work", then he threw senbons on both Sasuke and Sakura who weren't able to evade.

"Okay, that's it! I'm going to melt these damn mirrors! _Katon: Gokakyuu no Jutsu_!", snapped Sasuke after he recovered from the shock of the last attack.

"Fire of this level isn't going to melt my ice!", replied Haku jumping from a mirror besides Sakura and Sasuke, hitting them again.

"Damn, he's too fast!", swore Sasuke who started reviewing mentally what he knew about this jutsu, 'It comes from a _Kekkei Genkai _that allows the user to combine Water and Wind chakra to create Ice, my fire isn't strong enough to melt it, the mirrors definitely are part of the technique and I'm not sure how but that guy seems to be able to attack from every direction at once. He also favours senbons over kunais or shurikens and he seems intent in killing us by a thousand cuts so now what can I do?'

"Watch out, Sasuke-kun!", said Sakura shoving Sasuke out of the way of the next flurry of attack.

Unfortunately, Sakura herself wouldn't be fast enough to get out of the way even if she reinforced herself with chakra and, considering that wasn't anything close enough to swap with, she also couldn't use Kawarimi.

'She's going to die!', thought Sasuke. This realization hit him like a blade piercing his heart. No! He wouldn't let someone else die! Making a choice, Sasuke took action in a fraction of a second.

But for Sakura, the next moments took an eternity to pass as she saw the needles flying towards her - 'I'm going to die!', thought her, 'No, I don't want to die!' - and she knew she wouldn't be capable of defending.

Then she wasn't seeing the senbon any more and instead in their place was something much, much worse, something that made her blood freeze:

"Sa... suke-kun?"

"What's... with that face... Sakura?", smiled the boy, turning to her, three comma-like marks in his Sharingan eyes that were losing their light, a bit of blood running down from his mouth, senbon piercing his chest.

"No", was all that Sakura could mumble when she processed that Sasuke had somehow taken the attack in her place as despair filled her heart bit by bit.

"Sakura...", said Sasuke, slowly falling on his knees, "don't die", asked him, his eyes closing, only his will stopping the darkness from completely claiming his vision, "and avenge my clan... their killer was my brother, Itachi..."

"No... why...?"

"He killed my clan so... avenge them", continued the boy, his eyes returning to black.

"Why must you die?!", sobbed Sakura, tears falling from her eyes while she embraced her team mate.

"Also... be strong", finished the boy as he finally closed his eyes.

"NO!", wailed Sakura, her voice reaching Kakashi, Zabuza and even the Demon Brothers, her anguish truly reaching them and making turn their heads to her.

"It seems you failed in protecting them, Kakashi", told Zabuza flatly.

'No!', thought Kakashi as many painful memories resurfaced. It seemed it was more than about time for him to end the battle so he turned to Zabuza with a plan already in mind, "I'm sorry but I need to finish this now" and pulling a scroll from one of his jacket's pockets he prepared to summon some of his friends.

Not too far away from there, another person heard Sakura's scream and pushed the march on. He needed to get to the bridge quickly!

"Was that the first time you watched someone die?", asked Haku from inside the mirror right across Sakura. Without waiting for her answer, Haku continued, "He was a good shinobi."

"Shut... up...", said Sakura, sadness starting to turn into hatred.

"You know, I really believe that someone can only become truly strong when they have someone precious to protect", said Haku ignoring Sakura.

"Shut up...", repeated the girl, anger giving strength to her words.

"I guess he also understood that in some level."

"Shut up!"

"I wish I could see how strong he could become..."

"Shut up!"

"But that's unfortunately just how the shinobi world is, not everyone ends up living to their full potential."

"I SAID SHUT UP!", snapped Sakura, raising her head to glare at her enemy who gasped at seeing the pink-haired girl's eyes who weren't green any more but red with two comma-like marks in each one, "I WON'T FORGIVE YOU, YOU BITCH!".

'She has it too?', thought Haku, surprise visible in his face.

And Sakura charged the mirror, a kunai in hand.

What if she was opening her guard? What if her opponent was much much stronger than her? What if it was a futile effort? She wasn't caring about any of that! She was going to break those mirrors and reach the person inside even if it was the last thing she did!

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!", promised Sakura, chakra reinforcing her whole body, not caring if she destroyed herself in the process. Her hatred was so strong now that she didn't care if her muscles consumed themselves or if her bones broke, all she cared about was in killing Haku

So focused Sakura was in killing the 'girl' that stole the life of the guy she loved that she flooded all the chakra she could in her limbs, all in the hope of breaking those damned mirrors.

Haku didn't waste time and jumped to another mirror just before Sakura hit the ice mirror with the kunai in her hand, chakra strengthening the strike but still not enough to even crack the mirror a little.

So she pushed more chakra out; it still wasn't enough however, the mirror standing stubbornly against her charge.

So she just pushed even more chakra. This time the mirror cracked a bit but it was still far from enough.

So she continued pushing more! The crack spread on the surface of the ice but it still didn't penetrate deep enough to make it unusable and she was almost running out of chakra.

So she focused as much chakra as she could in the task and _damn it_ it still it wasn't enough!

This way she was never going to break the mirrors! If only she had more power!

Then her determination called upon an unexpected source of power, a source of power that all living beings had but that only a few managed to access.

In her single-mindedness to break the mirrors she ended up calling upon her 8 Chakra Gates, points in people's chakra pathway system in which huge amounts of chakra ran through and that evolution developed in order to protect the body from the incredible amounts of energy and stress one was able to produce.

And only when she unconsciously opened the First Gate, known as the Gate of Opening, did she get enough power to finally break Haku's ice mirrors in an explosion of chakra that destroyed her kunai, shrapnel flying over her head.

Haku _felt_ the explosion and so did Kakashi, Zabuza and the Demon Brother, all of whom stopped their moves for a moment of confusion in which only inertia making their limbs move.

Kakashi was the first to understand what happened.

"I'm sorry, Zabuza", said Kakashi calling the attention back to himself; it seemed he didn't have much time to waste, "but as I said, this ends here! _Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu_!", and slammed the scroll in his hands on the floor, summoning eight ninja dogs which tracked Zabuza and held him in place with their jaws when they found him.

"What's that?!", asked a surprised Zabuza, who stopped concentrating in maintaining the mist that still covered the bridge.

To say Haku was surprised was an understatement; it was the first time he saw anyone breaking one of his mirrors and to him, his enemy had suddenly become much more powerful in the middle of the battle which, of course, destabilized him; however didn't have much time to contemplate what had just transpired for Sakura turned to another mirror and visibly prepared to charge towards it...

"_TAJUU KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU_!"

But it seemed such a thing wasn't to be for at that moment the fighters on the bridge heard a boy using a jutsu and the next thing they knew was that a white-topped orange wave filled the bridge and flowed towards them.

One only had to pay a little bit of attention to see that the wave was actually formed by many identical boys clad in orange running. All of them shadow clones.

The Demon Brothers were the first victims. They tried to fight the orange tidal wave back, they really did, but for each clone they destroyed two more advanced in a second, three slipped past them and who knows how many hit them from right, left and behind. And there were literally HUNDREDS of them. It didn't take too long before the Brothers were overwhelmed.

And the army didn't stop it's advance. They continued running on the bridge, charging head-on and soon they were reaching Haku's mirrors; at that moment Sakura recognized the clones:

"Na... ruto?", she called, her energy starting to leave her body.

"Are you okay, Sakura-chan?", said one of the Narutos who broke from the formation and joined her.

"They... they killed Sasuke-kun", told her, turning her now red eyes to Naruto who gasped when he noticed the pattern in them before what she told properly registered in his mind, making him narrow his eyes and transforming his face in a fierce mask of determination.

"Where is Sasuke?"

"There", Sakura pointed her head to the mirror she had just destroyed. Haku was already rebuilding it but Sasuke's prone form was still visible.

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan, I'm going to make them pay", guaranteed Naruto as she finally collapsed of exhaustion. Naruto only took a moment to make sure she wasn't in a life-threatening situation.

All the other Narutos kept advancing in the bridge and broke apart when close to the Naruto besides Sakura giving the impression to someone with an air view that they were like a rock in a flowing river.

That Naruto, weather a clone or the real one, then jumped onto the mirror Haku was fixing and changing his bones' density Naruto crashed into the still relatively fragile wall and reached Sasuke but before he could return to the opening, Haku attacked him and Naruto was forced to shield Sasuke with his own body which would usually hurt him badly but this time the senbon ricocheted from Naruto's body. When Haku's attack stopped for a moment Naruto took the chance and kicked the same mirror and jumped outside with Sasuke on his shoulder.

Realizing his jutsu was now useless, Haku cancelled it and drew some senbon while he watched Naruto carefully laying Sasuke on the floor and taking his pulse as the last of the clones finished running around them giving them ample space to move freely.

Naruto sighed in relief:

"Thank god he's only unconscious", mumbled Naruto. The pulse was weak but it was still there and it seemed it would hold on for some time that hopefully would be enough. Naruto turned to Haku.

Haku only watched but then he sensed something and for the first time since he began his ninja training, Haku felt fear, truly and unbearable fear so he created a single mirror behind him and jumped in it, leaving Naruto confused.

"What's that?", asked Zabuza a bit earlier when he heard many steps approaching. And there were so many steps it literally sounded like an army charging them.

Kakashi also heard the steps and quickly deduced what it was so he jumped on the rail and stuck with his chakra there as an army of Naruto clones broke through the mist and ran in the direction of Zabuza who raised his whole brow, gaping as realization downed on him about what was about to happen and when the dogs 'unsummoned' themselves when the clones were just about to run over them and just-drawn kunais in hands, Zabuza couldn't do much besides accepting his death, it seemed his dream would end up unfulfilled after all.

Except a mirror appeared out of thin air and from within Haku came out and raised a shield of ice to cover them and for one instant Zabuza had never been as thankful for having raised such a person as Haku as he did now.

Normally this would mark the beginning of the victory of Team 7 over Team Zabuza as Haku and Zabuza would be unable to move easily but it seemed Fate had other plans in store because they heard the sound of a cane hitting the ground loud enough to call their attention.

At that moment the mist on the bridge began to open like a curtain and one man stood out, a short man with a weird moustache and small round black glasses under a funny hairdo. A smug smirk on his face.

Gatou.

There were many hard to distinguish shapes behind Gatou. When the mist cleared a bit more it became clear it was an army of bandits. Not even nearly to compensate Naruto's sheer number of clones but an impressive view nonetheless.

Everyone on the bridge in conditions turned their stare to the mob boss.

Normally, seeing a few hundreds of identical looking boys staring at you would probably be quite intimidating if you were alone, but Gatou was with a couple hundreds of thugs behind him, all of them vicious, armed and grown-up so all he saw were hundreds of unarmed brats so he was feeling quite confident that if it came to a battle between opposing armies, his would definitely come on top. So such vision had only slightly unnerved him.

Needless to say he didn't understand anything about a single ninja's prowess in battle.

So, seeing the army of identical brats with weapons hitting a shield of ice behind which Zabuza and Haku were, Gatou still felt safe enough to gloat:

"Hah! Who would've thought the 'feared' Demon of the Mist Momochi Zabuza was just a puppy imp that barked louder than his bite? I knew I took the right decision when I decided to not pay him even if he managed to complete his job."

Kakashi stood straighter and narrowed his eyes a bit.

Haku stared at Gatou, an unreadable expression on his face.

The many Narutos only stared at Gatou with a confused expression.

"Did I hear it right, Haku?", said Zabuza to his tool, the Demon's voice flat, devoid of any emotion, "Did our stupid contractor just nullify our contract?"

"Yes, Zabuza-sama, our stupid contractor did just that", answered Haku in the same tone.

"Well, it seems we don't have any business with you any more, Kakashi", told Zabuza, slowly standing up.

"Indeed it seems so", agreed Kakashi hiding his Sharingan again. Besides he was almost out of chakra _again_, so he decided to save as much as he could now so he wouldn't stay in bed another week.

All the Narutos turned to their sensei and said at the same time:

"WHAT? Just like that?"

"Yes, Naruto, that's just how the Ninja World is. Your enemy from the instant before might become your friend in the next and then return to being your enemy the next time", answered Kakashi.

"Hear your sensei, kid. Ninjas should only do what they are being paid to do", confirmed Zabuza.

"But they almost killed Sasuke!", complained one of the Narutos, surprising the others who then glared at Zabuza and Haku.

"Just business, boy", replied Zabuza.

"WHAT?! I'm not going to accept that!"

"Listen Naruto", said Kakashi patiently, "can we discuss this another time, preferably when there _isn't_ an army of armed mercenaries wanting to kill us?"

"B-but, Sasuke...!", mumbled one of the Narutos.

Kakashi just stared at the Narutos.

"Fine! But I still can't forgive them", grumbled another Naruto, stepping up as all the others stood behind him. It seemed that was the original one.

"Well, that discussion was amusing to see", said Gatou turning his back to the ninjas, "but I have a country to take so excuse me if I have my soldiers attack. I don't have the whole day you know?"

And the short man started walking away from the bridge, probably to sit somewhere while he watched the country burning while he sipped some wine as he was sure it would happen.

And the bandits charged.

Quickly the four ninjas still in conditions to fight (one of them with a personal army of shadow clones) attacked as well.

The battle was fast-paced and brutal. Dozens of shadow clones 'died', the smoke of their dispelling covering all and making them unable to clearly see what was happening, tens of bandits dying before they noticed, many times by their own allies because they didn't get through the same training of a ninja.

The ninjas themselves also had jutsus on their side, which made killing many enemies at the same time much easier but most of them were hurt, tired and running out of chakra (not to mention that in the case of Zabuza he was forced to use his legs to kill as his arms were still immobilized) so during the battle Haku went over to Sasuke's side and using his reasonable medicine knowledge he took out some of the senbon in Sasuke, making his blood flow better and his heart recover strength and soon Sasuke had joined the battle as well.

Even so the ninja resistance was having a hard time (not that the invaders were having an easy time either) and it reached a time that the bandits realized it was Naruto who was spawning the main force of the ninjas with his _Tajuu Kage Bunshin_ so they were now keeping him too occupied to do that again and with that they were slowly but surely turning the tide of the battle to their side.

But Fate smiled on Team 7 and Wave once again because in the middle of it all the very citizens of Wave, led by Inari and having taken up arms, reached the bridge, ready to fight for their country.

It was at that time that the battle turned against the invaders in an unstoppable manner and the victor was decided because when the Wave citizens attacked Gatou's forces Naruto was finally able to use his jutsu once again and with that the remaining mercenaries were suddenly facing 10-to-1 odds so they took the most logical decision and retreated.

And the Great Battle of the Wave Bridge ended with a victory for Wave!

* * *

**Author's note****s**:

06/17/2013: Damn, that was a hard chapter to write! Things just didn't go when I wanted them to! But at least I've finished the battle on the bridge. At least I managed to write the scene with Sakura which I had wanted to do since the beginning even if it didn't go as I envisioned at the beginning but it ended up quite nice in the end in my opinion. Anyway, I suppose this story can now be considered be an Alternate Universe because of that, am I right? It won't really change that much from now on however - at least as far as plot goes -, but I guess it would fit in such category now.

Well, I hope this chapter was worth the wait but I'm still unsatisfied with the end, you know the part where the "armies" clashed, but I had simply spent so much time in this chapter that I just wanted to go on with it. Maybe I'll rewrite it better later but I don't think so, it will depend on your reactions really.

I hope you liked this big chapter and haven't given up on my story! Thank you for reading!


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